Paediatric First Aid is designed to teach someone how to deal with injuries and illnesses with children and infants. Whilst infants are usually fairly similar in size, older children can be many different sizes. Children of the same age will not be, in many cases, the same height or size. There are
differences in how you provide First Aid for infants and children, and as such, you may have to adopt some special procedures that suit the size of the child. Infants are defined as from birth, to one year old. And how you provide First Aid to all infants is the same. Children are defined, for First Aid purposes, as those aged from 1 year, to puberty. An older child is defined as one typically around puberty and up to 18, however, the skills that apply to older children may apply to larger children under this age.
Different Skills for Different Size Children
You will learn during this course how to adopt some skills enabling you to provide the most effective First Aid. One example would be CPR compressions. Where you would use either one or two hands, depending on the size of the child. Another example would be if you were dealing with choking. How you do this could again depend on the size of the child. In a situation where an infant, child and an adult were to lose the same amount of blood due to an injury, there is more risk of the situation becoming more serious for the infant than for the child or adult, due to the ratio of blood to body size.
Many of the skills and First Aid treatments that you will learn for the older child in this course will be the same as you would provide for an adult. However certain conditions are generally more prevalent in the two groups. When a child is unwell, the situation can often deteriorate far faster than it would for an adult. Also when dealing with children, you need to be aware that they may not be able to explain how they feel to you. Or they may sometimes not tell you the truth. Children have a lot of energy and are often very active and inquisitive, which makes them more prone to accidents. Some of the illnesses you will learn to deal with are far more likely to
apply – or only to apply – to infants and children.
For more information on training courses, visit our website dedicated to Paediatric First Aid.