Preschool safety and first aid

The core of safety management in the preschool stage is "pre-risk investigation takes precedence over post-emergency treatment", and the first principle of first-aid operations is "adapting to children's physiological characteristics and refusing to copy adult first-aid regulations." There is no universal formula, and all measures must be adjusted around the cognitive and behavioral characteristics of children aged 0-6.

An experience that particularly impressed me was when I went to work as a safety supervisor in a Puhui kindergarten in the suburbs last fall. As soon as I entered the door, I heard a commotion in the health room. It turned out that a little boy in the middle class had stuffed a plastic button with a diameter of less than 1cm into his nostril during a handicraft class. The teacher on duty had just graduated, and he reached out to take it out in a panic. Click and push the button to the nasopharynx. Fortunately, the health care doctor has participated in our special training before. He immediately pressed the child's nostril without the foreign object and asked him to blow it hard. After two blows, the button was sprayed out. If he really took it out, he would have to go to the otolaryngology department to remove it with a hook. Not only would the child suffer, but he might also get choked into the trachea and cause serious problems.

Don't tell me, there have always been two completely different voices in the circle regarding preschool first aid training: One group is practitioners in the field of general first aid, which advocates that both teachers and parents should take the Red Cross First Aid Certificate and all operations should be carried out according to standardized procedures.； On the other hand, we are the practical school for preschool safety, and have been calling for "preschool-specific first aid adaptations" - after all, if you think about it, a baby under 1 year old only weighs about 10 pounds, and the Heimlich maneuver can break the ribs if it is as strong as an adult. A parent watched a video online before, using the adult abdominal impact method on a 10-month-old baby with a stuck orange flap. In the end, the foreign body came out, and the child was hospitalized for a week because of liver contusion. These are real cases.

Oh, by the way, many people think that safety means putting away all dangerous things, but that is not the case. I once met a parent who advocated "natural parenting" and did not even cover the corners of the table at home. He said that the children should be allowed to feel the danger by themselves. As a result, the child knocked on the corner of the table as soon as he could walk, and required three stitches on his eyebrow bone. Both parenting ideas are actually a bit extreme. The best is hierarchical control: for example, small objects that are live, sharp, and can cause suffocation must be kept out of the reach of children, which are red line risks. ； As for unwrapped soft-sided table corners and not-too-high steps, children can actually touch them under the supervision of adults to slowly build up risk awareness. Otherwise, you can't keep him in a sterile box for the rest of his life, right?

There are also a few pitfalls that are particularly easy to step into, and many people don’t take them seriously. One was the accidental ingestion of magnetic beads. Previously, a child in our district swallowed three magnetic beads. The parents did not know it at first. The child complained of stomachache and thought it was bad food. He drank probiotics for two days. In the end, he was rolling in pain and went to the hospital for a X-ray. It was discovered that two magnetic beads were sucked together through the intestinal wall. The child had perforated the intestines and almost had an abdominal opening. There is also a case of closed head injury. The child fell off the sofa or bed and thought it was okay when the skin was not broken. However, a few hours later he started vomiting and drowsiness. In fact, he had intracranial hemorrhage. In this case, even if the child does not cry or make trouble after the fall and looks normal, he must be monitored for 24 hours. If there is any abnormality, he should be sent to the doctor immediately. Don't delay.

As for the treatment of burns that people often ask about, many of the older generation now believe that applying toothpaste, soy sauce, or badger oil to burns can reduce swelling and relieve pain. Last time I met a grandma whose grandson had just burned her arm with boiling water. She immediately applied a thick layer of toothpaste. When she arrived at the hospital, the doctor had to scrape off the toothpaste bit by bit. It was originally just a superficial second-degree burn. When scraping, the blisters were rubbed off, which increased the risk of infection. The current standard treatment of evidence-based medicine is to rinse, remove, soak, cover and remove. The first step is to rinse with running cold water for 15 to 20 minutes. Do not apply anything randomly. However, objectively speaking, if it is a very slight redness, no blistering, and there is no burn cream at home, it is not completely impossible to apply some mild aloe vera gel. But as long as blisters occur, you must not apply anything randomly and go to the doctor immediately.

I have been doing preschool safety training for almost 7 years, and I have never given out thick operating manuals with dozens of pages to kindergartens and parents. They are useless and no one will read them. I only ask everyone to remember three key points every time: first, before going out, entering class, and coming home, take a quick look around to see if there are any small objects smaller than a coin in diameter, whether there is an uncovered power supply, and whether there are any unsecured cabinets. In 10 seconds, 80% of the risks can be avoided.； Second, for all first aid operations, remember the age line first. The Heimlich maneuver for people under 1 year old is different from that for people over 1 year old. The depth of CPR compressions for people under 8 years old is different from that of adults. Don’t get confused. ； Third, whenever you are unsure about a situation, don’t deal with it blindly. Call 120 immediately. Even if it ends up being a false alarm, it is better than holding on and delaying things.

In fact, after doing preschool safety for so long, my biggest feeling is that there is no absolute "zero risk", and there is no need to worry about the possibility of not sleeping well. We should not be too careless, nor should we be too nervous. It is enough to learn more about safety and first aid knowledge that suits children's characteristics, and not panic when something happens. After all, whether raising or raising a baby, it is a process of constantly fighting monsters and upgrading.