9.2: Pediatric Cardiac Arrest

In our absolute worst-case scenarios, our pediatric patient is found or progresses into cardiac arrest. As an effective team leader, you must recognize the condition and act quickly and efficiently to increase the chances of survival. The changes with children relate to their size and cause of cardiac arrest:

1. Children (1 month – puberty) are more likely to experience cardiac arrest for respiratory reasons and therefore we will breathe at quicker intervals than adults.
   1. This is especially true with neonates (birth-30 days)
      1. Compression / Ventilation ratio of 3:1
2. Decrease the depth of compressions to 1/3 of the depth of the chest and use 1 hand instead of 2.
3. When performing alone, for children 1mo – puberty, we keep the 30:2 compression/ventilation ratio.
   1. When another rescuer arrives, we move to 15:2 compression/ventilation ratio.

      

Flowcharts are a helpful tool to visualize the concepts and decision making necessary within this set of skills. Unfortunately, due to copyright restrictions we are unable to provide them here.

The authors recommend you or your instructor find an up-to-date version of this flowchart from the American Heart Association. A simple web search on pediatric cardiac arrest algorithm AHA should do the trick. If you are viewing the online version of this lab manual, this link will take you to the AHA CPR algorithms.