An Overview of EMS Pediatric Airway Management

You arrive on scene, walk into the home and find a mother sitting on the couch with a 1-year-old child on her lap. She explains her daughter has been sick for several days, but today it was much harder than usual to wake her up from a nap and, “She just isn’t acting like herself.” The girl appears limp in her mother’s arms and doesn’t look up at you. She appears diaphoretic and her respiratory rate is approximately 8 breaths per minute. You look at your partner, who appears just as worried about the patient as you are, and quickly begin taking action. Your partner hooks up the small patient to the monitor while you continue to assess her. She barely wakes up from the feel of the blood pressure cuff and is lethargic. Her systolic blood pressure is 90 mmHg, oxygen saturation is 84%, temperature is 101 degrees F, and heart rate is 160. Her respiratory rate is very slow at 8 breaths per minute, and so you immediately jump into airway and respiratory support. Pediatric Peril It doesn’t matter whether you’re a seasoned professional or on your first EMS call: Being dispatched to a scene with a sick pediatric patient evokes feelings of fear in even the most seasoned provider. Sick pediatric patients are a low-volume, high-acuity call, and those who’ve treated sick children know how fast they can deteriorate and how quickly one must act. It’s never a bad idea to brush up on pediatric care, and where better to start than the airway? Although pediatric airways may seem...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Airway & Respiratory Source Type: news