Every parent will have a simple emergency at some stage, but you could set your mind at ease with a first aid course, writes SHEILA WAYMAN.
YOUR BABY has stopped breathing in the cot. You find a toddler face down in the paddling pool. Your 12 year old is choking on a piece of chicken. Nightmare scenarios which you read about, fret about, but generally hope won't happen to you.
If such an incident did happen, you would have four minutes to save your child's life. From the moment a person stops breathing, there's a maximum of four minutes before oxygen must reach the brain to prevent death or permanent brain injury.
There is no way an ambulance can come in that time, so it would be up to you. Would you ever forgive yourself if you did not know what to do, to at least try to save your child's life?
Such extreme emergencies are relatively rare, but minor accidents are bound to happen with all children. Learning first aid will help you deal with these, and can also give you the confidence not to make an unnecessary trip to A&E.
In some European countries, such as Germany, a certificate in first aid is mandatory when applying for a driving licence.
"It is a vital part of parenting to be able to deal with accidents," says Order of Malta spokesman, Jimmy Maye. "No one is better suited to do it than a parent because the trust is there."
Parents' biggest fear is cot death, he says, and accidents around the house, such as a child falling down the stairs, burns and scalds. The emphasis on first aid training in the workplace, in line with health and safety regulations in recent years, has helped to raise awareness of the need for such skills.
More young parents are now attending the general first aid courses run by the Order of Malta. Members of its 77 units throughout the State will also provide training for parents' groups at a time and place to suit when requested, Maye adds.
"I think every parent's nightmare is something happening to their child," says Liza Crotty, who set up her own company, ClapHandies, last September to provide educational services for child-rearing.
A former business development executive and mother of two-year-old Mia, she started with play development workshops, called PlayLabs, and now runs 18 a week in the Dublin/ Wicklow region. She then asked customers what other training they were interested in.
First aid was the most common answer. So ClapHandies now organises regular paediatric first aid courses, in conjunction with another private company, Responder Training, charging €120 for two mid-week evenings, or €140 for all day Saturday.
"People want to be the best parents they can possibly be," says Crotty. "Dealing with emergencies is something they want to be able to do. I am trying to give parents confidence. It may be a simple emergency, or a more serious one. But every parent is going to have a simple emergency."
She has clients where the mother comes one week, the father the next and they send the nanny the week after.
"I think every single person in the country should know first aid," Crotty adds. "It makes such a difference. We've all heard about people's lives being saved by a first aider."
At a recent ClapHandies course in Greystones, Co Wicklow, none of the five mothers of young children attending had done first aid before. "Choking is the big fear," says one mother of a seven-month-old baby and a three year old, "also burns and head injuries".
"First aid is the immediate treatment given to a casualty, or someone taken ill, prior to the arrival of medical aid," explains course director Alice Walsh, a trained midwife and intensive care nurse who is also a registered occupational first aid instructor. After completing the course you will have definite life-saving skills, she tells the mothers. "It will also take away your fears."
In the first evening she covers the different techniques of CPR for an infant, child or adult and the Heimlich manoeuvre for a choking baby, child or adult. Listening to someone talking about it is one thing, but only by practising on the child and adult dummies, under Walsh's watchful eye, do you really get a feel for what you should do.
The second night of the course covers topics such as broken bones, bleeding, burns and scalds, poisons, electric shock, seizures and temperature management.
Walsh says she has seen a big increase in parents interested in first aid over the past three years. She believes that a basic course can help parents to judge better when to rush to the GP or A&E, and when to stay at home.
There is a seasonal pattern to what doctors deal with at the emergency department in Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin, Dublin. The majority of the 30,000 first-time attendances a year would be minor illnesses and accidents, with 15-20 per cent of children admitted.
"Around Halloween we see an increase in burns and firework injuries," says emergency medicine consultant at Crumlin, Dr Ronan O'Sullivan. "In summer there's more fractures and orthopaedic injuries as people are doing more sports and outdoor activities; in winter it's more minor illnesses, respiratory illnesses such as coughs, colds and chest infections."
While he recommends that everybody, not just parents, learns basic first aid, he says few emergency attendances at hospital would be prevented by first aid care. "We tend to deal with complexity of care which goes beyond first aid."
Cuidiú, the Irish Childbirth Trust, also finds that first aid is now one of the more popular courses organised by the various branches around the State.
When the organisation had a stand at the Mother and Baby Show in the RDS, says spokeswoman Rebecca McLaughlin, expectant parents were coming up and inquiring about where they could learn first aid. "Parents seem to want to have more practical skills and do stuff themselves."
Choking and cot deaths would be among the fears uppermost in the minds of parents who contact another training company, Safety Ireland, according to one of its instructors, Zara Mahon. It runs one-day childcare first aid courses at its centre in Blanchardstown, Co Dublin at a cost of €150 for an individual, or will provide the course at any creche or other group venue throughout the State on request.
In the case of a life-threatening emergency, "you need to start doing treatment before the professionals get there or the outlook is not good", she says. "You have to sustain life before the professionals arrive."
"People are very nervous. But a lot of first aid is common sense," Mahon adds. "Stay calm and be as professional as possible, that's what we try to teach."
Useful contacts:
www.ClapHandies.com; 087-919 6042
www.orderofmalta.ie; 01-614 0035
www.sja.ie; 01-668 8077
www.respondertraining.ie; 01-475 0318
www.safetyireland.com; 1850-555 999