Children's safety and first aid experience sample essay

The value of risk prevention and control in advance is much higher than that of first aid operations afterwards. First aid skills that have undergone official standardized training are the last line of defense for all guardians to protect their children. There is no need to blindly believe in online remedies, nor to overly deify the role of first aid skills.

I am a mother of two children, the eldest is 6 years old and the second is 2 years old. I took the Junior First Aid Certificate from the Red Cross Society of China 3 years ago, and also took the Heartsaver course from the American Heart Association. I have actually encountered three emergencies with children around me, so I can be considered a practitioner who has been through all the pitfalls. Last fall, Grandma Zhang took her 3-year-old grandson downstairs to eat jelly. The baby choked on it while he was running and fussing. Grandma Zhang was so panicked that she hugged the baby and patted her back. The more she patted the baby, the more purple her face became, and she couldn’t even make a sound. I happened to go downstairs to pick up the express, rushed over to take it, pressed it three times with the Heimlich maneuver, and the jelly chunks spurted out. At that time, some people around were muttering, "How dare you fool around? What if the child's ribs are broken?" This just hit the most common controversy in this field now.

There are indeed two completely different views: One group advocates that all guardians must be proficient in Heimlich and cardiopulmonary resuscitation skills, and use them as soon as possible when encountering a situation, so as to seize the golden rescue time.； The other group believes that non-professionals can easily cause secondary injuries due to improper operation, and it is safer to call 120 and wait for rescue immediately. My own feeling is that there is nothing wrong with both of these statements. The core depends on the situation at the scene: If the baby can't breathe at all and his consciousness has begun to blur, the more than ten minutes of waiting for 120 is simply not worth it, even if the operation is risky. ； If the baby can still cry and talk, and the airway is only partially obstructed, then really don’t slap or press randomly, as this will easily push the foreign object deeper. It is safest to call 120 and wait for professionals to call him immediately. Oh, yes, the teacher in class at that time also emphasized that babies under 1 year old cannot use the Heimlich in their arms. They must lie on the adults' arms and alternately pat their backs and press their chests. Don't forget this detail.

Last summer, my eldest child spilled the hot soup on the dining table and his wrists were red. My mother took toothpaste and was about to apply it on it. I stopped her and held her under the faucet and rinsed it with running water at room temperature for 15 minutes. Later, when I went to the hospital, the doctor said that the treatment was correct and she didn't even soak. There is also a controversy that has been going on for several years: many elders firmly believe that applying toothpaste, soy sauce, and badger oil to burns is useful. Some popular science accounts even now suggest that if there is no condition for flowing cold water outdoors or in remote areas, it is not completely impossible to use these things to temporarily isolate pollution. My own experience is that as long as conditions permit, running water at room temperature for 15-20 minutes is the absolute best solution. Unless there are no conditions, don’t use those folk remedies indiscriminately, otherwise it will easily cause infection and affect the doctor’s judgment of the severity of the burn.

To be honest, after learning first aid for so long, I have only used it a handful of times. What I spend more energy on is daily risk investigation. I used to think that everything would be fine if I covered the corners of the table and put protective covers on the sockets. Until one time when I turned around to put some clothes away, my second brother grabbed the melatonin I had placed on the bedside table and stuffed half of it into my mouth. I was so scared that I lost my mind. Later, when I checked the data, I found out that accidents such as children accidentally taking medicines and accidentally ingesting desiccant accounted for more than 30% of accidental injuries to children in the family, which is much higher than the probability of accidental injuries. Another time when I was watching the news, a child was playing with a clothesline at home and it was wrapped around his neck and almost suffocated. When I got home, I quickly cut all the hanging ropes short. I also added a protective fence to the anti-theft net on the balcony. The gap was reduced to less than 5 centimeters to prevent the baby's head from getting stuck.

A friend asked me before if I wanted to sign up for a high-end first aid class that cost several thousand yuan. I thought it was really unnecessary. Many communities and the Red Cross provide free public welfare training. Just follow it and it will be enough. I still can’t remember clearly whether the compression depth of children’s cardiopulmonary resuscitation is 4 cm or 5 cm. Every time I want to confirm, I flip through the courseware stored in my mobile phone. After all, ordinary people are not professional first responders. There is no need to force myself to memorize all the parameters. It is enough to find the right reference and not panic at critical times. Oh, yes, I took classes from two different institutions before. The compression ventilation ratio taught by the teacher was slightly different in details. Later, I checked the latest evidence-based medicine guidelines and found out that the difference is actually for the different scenarios of single-person rescue and double-person rescue. No one is right or wrong. Just follow the requirements of the formal institution and don’t get entangled in such minutiae.

Many people ask me if I want to buy a home first aid kit that costs thousands of dollars. I think you can buy it, but don’t buy the fancy one. It is enough to put iodophor, sterile gauze, hemostatic patch, antipyretic suppository, and special burn ointment for children. You can buy emergency hemostatic powder, airway suction cups, etc. according to your needs. I have prepared them myself, but the probability of actually using them is very low, so there is no need to blindly stock up.

In fact, it was only after I became a parent that I realized that learning these things is not to become a "first aid expert". To put it bluntly, it is to have peace of mind. When something really happens, your hands will not shake and you can make relatively correct choices, which is better than anything else. After all, when we raise a child, we don’t expect him to be rich and wealthy, but to grow up safely is more important than anything else.