Summary of children’s safety and first aid experience

When it comes to children's safety, the value of proactive prevention is far greater than any sophisticated first aid operation. The most important thing for ordinary people to learn children's first aid is not how many unpopular skills they know, but the courage to take action when encountering situations and not making common sense mistakes.

When I was doing training in the old town community last summer, I met Aunt Zhang Guilan who brought her grandson. Her grandson had a fish bone stuck in him. She stuffed two big mouthfuls of steamed buns with vinegar according to the old method. As a result, the fish bone penetrated deeper. In the end, she went to the otolaryngology department to have a laryngoscope to remove it. She suffered a serious crime. She sat in the front row of that training and practiced the Heimlich maneuver more than a dozen times. In March this year, she sent me a WeChat message saying that the three-year-old neighbor's child downstairs had jelly stuck in his throat and his face was purple. She went up and pushed it three times according to the movements taught in the training, and the jelly spurted out, and the child cried on the spot. To be honest, I was more excited than Aunt Zhang at that time, not because our training was useful, but because finally there were parents who didn’t keep what they learned in their notebooks, and didn’t panic enough to use those unorthodox methods they heard somewhere at the critical moment.

When many parents come to me for first aid manuals, the first thing they say is "What should I do if my child has an accident?". Very few people first ask "What should I do to prevent my child from getting into trouble?" I once met a mother who could memorize the parameters of children's cardiopulmonary resuscitation very well. The corners of the coffee table at home are still sharp, and the kettle is placed at the dining table within reach. When I reminded her, she said "It's okay, I'm watching." If you really wait for you to lower your head to scroll a short video for two seconds, the child knocks over the kettle. What's the use of memorizing it?

At this point, someone must be raising an issue, saying that I can’t raise my child in a sterile box, right? Indeed, the current discussion on child safety on the Internet is also polarized. One group calls for "hard-core protection" and is fully equipped with anti-collision strips, anti-pinch door cards, and anti-lost bracelets. The other group says that pampering children is not conducive to growth, and even a fall will cause a fuss. I think both sides are right. The degree of protection should be based on the age of the child. For a child who has just learned to crawl, you are definitely right to wrap the corners of the table. For a seven- or eight-year-old boy who runs and jumps outside every day, you can't give him a helmet to go to school, right? If you really get a small scratch after falling, just disinfect it and it will be done. There is no need to go to the hospital to take a film.

There are also some first-aid issues that everyone is arguing about the most, such as whether a child should take antipyretics immediately when he has a fever. In the past, the old concept said that physical cooling is enough if the temperature is below 38.5 degrees. The current view of evidence-based medicine is not to stare at the temperature, but to look at the child's mental state. If the temperature is 38 degrees and he can't open his eyes, eat what you need to eat. If the temperature is 38.7 and he is still chasing the dog, then observe first. There is also whether you can apply something to a burn. The older generation said to apply toothpaste and soy sauce, and some even said to apply ash from the bottom of a pot. Some Chinese medicine practitioners say that applying badger oil is very effective for mild and unbroken burns. I have encountered many people in the emergency department who have applied soy sauce. It was originally just a first-time erythema, but the bacteria in the soy sauce led to infection and left scars instead. Objectively speaking, if the skin is only red but not broken, and there is no formal scald ointment around, traditional mild topical ointments are not completely unavailable. However, as long as the skin is blistered or broken, do not apply any colored non-medical preparations. Just rinse it with running cold water for 15 to 20 minutes, which is more effective than anything else.

I have met many parents who wanted to learn all the operations when they were learning first aid, such as the repositioning of dislocations and the treatment of foreign objects in the eyes. Last year, a father had a child who fell off the sofa and kowtowed. He checked his notes for half an hour and debated whether to do a CT scan. In fact, if the child fell on his head, as long as he didn’t vomit, wasn’t drowsy, was conscious, was eating and playing normally, there was no need to take the radiation, and it would be too late to go if he really had symptoms. When ordinary people learn first aid, they really don’t need to memorize so many fancy things. They just need to remember the principles of handling a few core scenes: use the Heimlich according to age if something is stuck; first flush cold water before taking off clothes if you are burned; first observe the state of consciousness if you fall on your head. If you are really unsure, follow the dispatcher’s instructions when calling 120, which is much more reliable than flipping through your notes.

I was giving training to a kindergarten a few days ago, and a teacher said that I always felt panicked when learning these things, as if I was expecting something to happen to my child every day. Actually, no. With this common sense in your mind, you can relax more. You don’t have to be nervous and keep an eye on your child all the time. You know what situations you can handle and how to minimize risks in advance. To put it bluntly, we learn safety knowledge and practice first aid skills not so that we can use them one day, but so that we will never use them in this life.