Experience in preschool children’s safety and first aid training

Protection always takes priority over first aid, and operations must be adapted to the physiological characteristics of children. Cognitive synchronization in kindergartens, families, and medical institutions is more important than mastering skills by one party alone.

This training is not the usual form of reading knowledge points from PPT. The organizer hired a clinical team from the emergency department of the Municipal Children's Hospital, paired with a supervisor with 20 years of experience in early childhood education safety management. At the beginning, two small safety accidents reported by our kindergarten last month were cited as cases - one was a child in the senior class who was injured with a small building block. My companion’s toe, a middle class child choked and coughed after eating cantaloupe. At that time, we thought there was no big problem after we dealt with it. However, the lecturer pointed out several invisible loopholes: when the child was choking, he would pat the child on the back. In fact, the child could still cough on his own and make a sound at that time. External patting on the back may cause loose foreign objects to slip deeper into the airway.； After the foot was smashed, we applied an ice pack to the child immediately, but we forgot to check whether there was an invisible wound caused by a cracked nail. We also did not emphasize to the parents later that they should monitor the child for 24 hours to see if there is any joint movement disorder.

There was also a quarrel at the scene over the principle of handling stuck pipes, which was quite interesting. Doctors in the emergency department have repeatedly emphasized that as long as a child shows signs of suffocation such as turning blue, being unable to make a sound, and having difficulty breathing, Heimlich must be administered as soon as possible. The golden first aid time is only 4 minutes. If the health doctor comes over and waits until 120, the best opportunity is likely to be missed. ； But the safety supervision teacher also has her concerns: Ordinary class teachers do not have the qualifications to practice medicine. If the operation force is not correct and the child's ribs are injured, or if the foreign object is not photographed but aggravates the symptoms, how will the responsibility be defined when parents are held accountable? Both sides made sense, and finally we came up with a compromise plan: all teachers in the kindergarten must take the first aid qualification certificate, and each class has an emergency call button that leads directly to the health room. If there is an emergency, the child's condition will be judged first. If he can cough and talk on his own, he will be encouraged to cough. Once there is an indication of suffocation, the health doctor will be on hand within one minute. Other teachers will call 120 and contact the parents simultaneously, so that the concerns of both parties can be covered.

I used to think that first aid was just about memorizing procedures, such as 15 minutes of emergency treatment for burns and scalds, and lifting my arms for nosebleeds. Only after this practice did I realize that this is not the case. When simulating Heimlich, I held a 3-year-old simulator in my arms and pressed it on the stomach according to the adult techniques I saw online. The instructor grabbed my wrist and said, "You feel the ribs of this simulator. The ribs of a 3-year-old child have not yet been calcified and are as brittle as fresh brittle bones. If you exert such force, the foreign body will not come out. The liver and spleen may have been punctured first." ”After practicing it more than ten times, I found the right strength: I have to lower the child's upper body, put my elbows against my thighs to fix it, and tap the heel of my palms to the two fingers above the belly button, tapping inwards and upwards. I practiced until my arms were sore at the end, and then I dared to say that I could really get started. The old beliefs of "lifting your arm when you have a nosebleed" and "putting toothpaste on a burn or scald" that have been believed for many years have also been completely corrected. There are also children who fell on their heads. Even if they cry immediately, they cannot directly determine that they are fine. They must be watched for 24 hours for signs of drowsiness and projectile vomiting, and they must not shake their heads casually.

The first thing I did when I got home after the training was to put all the small beaded toys with a diameter of less than 2 centimeters that belonged to my sister's 3-year-old niece into the storage box. I used to think that it would be fine if adults just stared at them, but now I know that children over 3 years old have hand speeds so fast that you can't even react. They can put beads in their mouths in the time it takes to turn around and grab a water glass. The kindergarten has recently been counting the food allergy history of all children. Previously, it only counted common allergens such as peanuts and mangoes. After this training, we learned that there are also many children who are allergic to kiwi and peaches. If contact with them causes laryngeal edema, the first aid procedure is completely different from that of a foreign object stuck in the throat.

Let’s talk about something that just happened last week. There was a child in our class who choked on a cherry tomato and coughed until his face turned red. Before, I would have reached out to pat his back in panic. That day, I immediately knelt down and asked him, “Can you talk?” ”, he coughed up half a cherry tomato after coughing for two minutes, so I gave him warm water to help him breathe, and he broke out in a cold sweat afterwards. Really, I have been working as a kindergarten educator for 4 years. I used to think that safety means paying close attention to children so as not to fall or bump them. Only after this training did I understand that the so-called safety and first aid are essentially to tighten the string before any accidents happen. When something does happen, don’t panic and follow the rules, which is more important than anything else.