Sandy Crest Medical Centre - Health Tips

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Childhood Emergencies

How would you handle it if your child was unconscious, choking, or having a seizure?

This is a list of some potential childhood medical emergencies:

• Difficulty breathing
• Choking on food, drink or object
• Uncontrolled bleeding
• Unresponsiveness or unconsciousness
• Blue or grey skin or lips
• Severe or persistent vomiting and diarrhea
• A seizure
• A very high fever especially if accompanied by a skin rash or neck stiffness
• Firearm wound
• Near drowning
• Suffocating
• Severe injury from a car or bike crash
• Eating or drinking something poisonous

It must be noted that preventable injuries/ emergencies are the leading cause of death and permanent disability in children.

Child safety seats, bicycle helmets, poison prevention, safety caps on medicines, placing all medicines out of the reach of children, window guards and sports safety equipment are only some of the ways of preventing injuries/ emergencies. It is important that those entrusted with looking after children (including parents) become familiar with basic CPR and other life saving techniques – e.g. Heimlich manoeuvre.