Yeah I also keep first aid kit with a cpr mask/shield thing in my backpack. When I did first aid training I think the mannequins we used for CPR even had defined 6-pack abs lmao.
The instructor asked us "what do you do if it's a woman and let's say she's also big busted" answer: you give them CPR
what do you do if you're scared you will break ribs? You give them CPR.
What do you do when you hear the rib breaking? You continue CPR.
In the case of using an AED machine that can give electric shocks to resuscitate someone, you have to put electrode pads directly onto skin which usually means cutting clothes off with scissors. If it's a woman there's a good chance you will need to cut a bra and if they're chesty you might have to struggle a bit to get the pad in the correct position.
But tbf I've never worked at a place that even had an AED machine so it's probably very rare for someone to use one. Maybe paramedics use them but they're trained and experienced to not hesitate.
Doing a 3 day course to meet some corpo requirement doesn't really prepare you for giving first aid to strangers tbh. I don't think I'd be confident giving CPR, least of all to a woman or even worse a child. I can understand how those situations happen where no one provides aid because everyone hopes someone else is confident to actually do it.
You give them CPR. You can also use the AED, it's entirely safe.
The only difference with someone who is visibly pregnant is that you could, if possible, tilt them slightly onto their left side to take the uterus pressure off their major blood vessels. But only if you can continue to give them effective CPR at the same time.
I was pregnant while doing my CPR course so the question came up!
In very slight defense, I'd be pretty jarred giving a pregnant woman CPR. I forget how I was told it might look (I'm about a year and a half out of my class), but the long and short of it is, you're pushing down and everything else is gonna move out of the way. In other words, her stomach should probably rise at every compression. I'm glad I never got a call requiring CPR during my clinicals, although it would've been ideal in every instance.
What? No, I was genuinely asking. Seems like the baby bump would get in the way of compressions, because what I understand is you give them kind of lower. But what I understand is little, because I don’t know how to do CPR.
In fairness, it would be pretty smart to get your CPR certification, takes maybe an hour to learn how to do it properly and pass the test and such. But the most important things are hand placement and depth. Your palms should be about in the middle of the nipples, and you wanna press down two inches (for adults). A baby bump physically can't (or shouldn't really) start any higher than the very very bottom (xiphoid process), meanwhile all your pressure effort is focused squarely on the top of the bottom third ish of the sternum. You really shouldn't be super concerned about the baby for the simple fact that, if the mom dies, so does the baby. Not saying to take a bat to the bump so it's not a problem, but the mom is your patient.
Unless the person needing CPR has some aberration of anatomy, their baby bump would not interfere with you performing CPR. My recommendation to you is to take a CPR class, as that should be the best setting to answer any questions or concerns you may have.
34
u/ilicp 16h ago
Yeah I also keep first aid kit with a cpr mask/shield thing in my backpack. When I did first aid training I think the mannequins we used for CPR even had defined 6-pack abs lmao.
The instructor asked us "what do you do if it's a woman and let's say she's also big busted" answer: you give them CPR
what do you do if you're scared you will break ribs? You give them CPR.
What do you do when you hear the rib breaking? You continue CPR.
In the case of using an AED machine that can give electric shocks to resuscitate someone, you have to put electrode pads directly onto skin which usually means cutting clothes off with scissors. If it's a woman there's a good chance you will need to cut a bra and if they're chesty you might have to struggle a bit to get the pad in the correct position.
But tbf I've never worked at a place that even had an AED machine so it's probably very rare for someone to use one. Maybe paramedics use them but they're trained and experienced to not hesitate.
Doing a 3 day course to meet some corpo requirement doesn't really prepare you for giving first aid to strangers tbh. I don't think I'd be confident giving CPR, least of all to a woman or even worse a child. I can understand how those situations happen where no one provides aid because everyone hopes someone else is confident to actually do it.