Lucy Piper: With children, accidents will happen, even though we try wrapping them up with cotton wool. But there are some simple precautions you can take to help you cope in the situation and keep calm. Joining me is Yvonne Dormer from St. John Ambulance to give us a few tips.
So, Yvonne, I just said about keeping calm, now surely, that is easy as said to done as a parent when your little one has fallen over and hurt himself.
Yvonne Dormer: It's very hard when you are emotionally involved. You really do have to take a step back, take a deep breath and stop and think before you rush in. Try and stay as calm as you can because if you're panicking, it will upset the child even more.
Lucy Piper: It must be quite difficult for children because, of course, they can't articulate what was happened. So, what you do then when you can't actually find out what happened to the child?
Yvonne Dormer: Well, if they are old enough to tell you where it hurts, say, they will often use old phrases. I heard a little boy tell me that he had a tummy ache in his head because it was used to tummy aches, but he couldn't work out that it was a headache. So those sort of phrases.
With smaller children, it's often the body language. They are riving, they are wriggling, they are holding on to the bed that hurts. They are rubbing themselves in the area that's painful; you have to just watch them.
Lucy Piper: So, is it important to have a first-aid kit in your home?
Yvonne Dormer: It's very useful but it doesn't have to be rocket science, something simple will suffice.
Lucy Piper: Okay, you've got nice little one here. So let's first have a look at. This is an ideal first-aid kit to have in your home.
Yvonne Dormer: Perfect.
Lucy Piper: Let's have a look.
Yvonne Dormer: Not too much in it. Thing you'll probably use most of is assorted plasters, use for any injury that is fairly small and minor. Quite useful also to have a few a triangular bandages. They can have many and varied uses. They can be used to secure a larger dressing on to the skin, slings, tying legs together if somebody has broken a bone, all sorts of things.
Some assorted dressing; this is quite a large, one you can get them in various sizes. For injuries that are bit bigger than what would be, it goes happily with a plaster. Also, useful to have something like this, which is a pack of sterile gloves. If you've got a big injury, your hands are dirty, you don't have time to wash your hands before you do with it, pop some gloves on and you got a clean hand to work with, and something that people often forget, good old straightforward safety pin.
Lucy Piper: You can never find a safety pin when you want one.
Yvonne Dormer: No, people always borrow them from things like first-aid kits, but if you can have a little packet of safety pins that will be really useful.
Lucy Piper: And that will suffice.
Yvonne Dormer: Yeah, that will do the job.
Lucy Piper: Okay, so what do I do? My child's had an accident, what's the first thing I should do?
Yvonne Dormer: Make sure, you are not going to have a similar accident. It's very, very tempting to rush in and get involved but you need to stand back and actually look at the scene and make sure there's no danger to you, before you rush in and help. Have a good look up.
Make sure nothing is going to fall from the ceiling, nothing you're going to trip over. Smell the atmosphere, no obnoxious fumes. So check thoroughly for danger.
Make sure that child will respond, talk to them, call their name, try and get them to answer. If it's a baby who can't speak back to you, pick them up and it may sound a little mean but just flick the sole of their feet. The idea is you are trying to make them cry; if they are making a noise they are breathing.
So, if they are not responsive, open their airway, place them on a firm surface, handle their forehead, fingers on their chin and just lift the chin slightly towards the ceiling.
Listen, look, and feel for breathing, get your air right by the end of their nose, breath on your cheek, listen and feel for them breathing for about ten seconds. You are hopefully wanting to hear a couple of three breaths in that time and at that point, you really need to make a decision; is this something that I can do with myself, do I need to find somebody, send someone for the ambulance.
If they are breathing but they are unconscious then they must be seeing by a medical aid. So get the ambulance called at that point and then go on to check whether there's any circulation problem. Check to see if there's any severe bleeding and deal with it, if you need to.
Lucy Piper: I know, as moms, you don't feel like you want to be wasting anyone's time but perhaps you are just fussing. We wouldn't be wasting the ambulance's time, if we would to give you a call.
Yvonne Dormer: No, with children, any ambulance service will say that they treat it as a serious priority. So if you are in doubt, phone; it's better to be safe than sorry.
Lucy Piper: Brilliant! Thank you very much, Yvonne. So, if an accident does happen, remember, stay calm and check for danger, response, airway, breathing and circulation and if you are in doubt, do call a doctor.
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