Resuscitation Counsel Guidelines

The 2015 Resuscitation Council guidelines made the following changes to paediatric basic life support:

• Compression:ventilation ratio: lay rescuers should use a ratio of 30:2
• If there are two or more rescuers with a duty to respond then a ratio of 15:2 should be used
• Age definitions: an infant is a child under 1 year, a child is between 1 year and puberty

Key points of algorithm

• Unresponsive?
• Shout for help
• Open airway
• Look, listen, feel for breathing
• Give 5 rescue breaths
• Check for signs of circulation
  • Infants use brachial or femoral pulse, children use femoral pulse
• 15 chest compressions:2 rescue breaths (see above)
  • Chest compressions should be 100-120/min for both infants and children
  • Depth: depress the lower half of the sternum by at least one-third of the anterior–posterior dimension of the chest (which is approximately 4 cm for an infant and 5 cm for a child)
  • In children: compress the lower half of the sternum
  • In infants: use a two-thumb encircling technique for chest compression