Online CPR Certification Blog

Administration of mouth to mouth procedure has sidelined many people who are just a few minutes away from saving the life of a person whose heart has abruptly stopped. In their efforts to address such concerns, in 2010, American Heart Association changed its standards in advocating for the hands- only CPR. This procedure is much simpler compared to trying to coordinate breathing with some cardiac compressions. However, most Americans are yet to know about such changes.

Why it is advisable not to do mouth to mouth

The American Red Cross teaches and continues to recommend the two techniques and still advocates the use of compressions and breathing where the person doesn’t know for how long the patient has been unconscious. However, others believe that performing mouth to mouth only take a lot of valuable time that prevents one from restarting the victim’s heart via compressions. Most victims of cardiac arrest have been found to have obstructed throats which hinder air from getting to the lungs. Experts noted that not performing mouth to mouth breathing is one of the greatest things you can do. And in fact, most people are very scared by doing the mouth to mouth breathing aid.

It was noted that the fear by most people to give mouth to mouth prevents them from performing CPR on demand and learning about the technique. Moreover, doing the hands only CPR greatly outweighs the normal mouth to mouth procedure. Most people are very hesitant in putting their mouth on another person’s mouth as they don’t know what is in it and in any case, they must protect themselves first regardless of how determined they are to save the life of the victim. Any time that you stop doing the compressions, you only end up losing all the pressure which you had built in the heart. Building the pressure for backup takes too long and turning to mouth to mouth might only end up in more harm than any good.

Why chest compression is more advantageous

Another CPR specialist said that chest compression is a more streamlined technique that is much simpler and after contacting 911, one just needs to begin with the chest compressions right away. For more effectiveness, one should perform 100 chest compressions per minute. It is of paramount importance for people to understand that CPR has now changed and it is no longer complicated like before. Doing such an easy thing when a victim has collapsed is not going to hurt them but only increase their chances of survival. New statistics released by American Heart Association shows that most people fail to help cardiac arrest victims because they have no idea about CPR administration while others do not have updated training. In America, statistics show that there are 383, 000 cases of cardiac arrests happening every year with about 80% of them happening at home.