Mark: Hi, I'm Mark from CPR Certification Institute, and welcome to today's video on pregnant choking. Now, a pregnant choking victim, our approach is different than a standard choking victim when it comes to the Heimlich Maneuver. Now, that's because of the changes in mom's anatomy as the pregnancy moves forward.
As the pregnancy develops, things get moved around in her abdominal cavity. The baby's taking up all this room, so it's pushing downward on her bladder, it's pushing upward on her stomach and on her lungs. It's pushing up on the diaphragm, so she can't take as big a breath as she used to. She can't take all that, can't take a full breath of air. Because it's compressing the stomach she can't eat as much, and she eats more often, so pregnant females are more likely to choke. If you're dining with a pregnant female, please ask them to, "Chew your food."
Now, in the standard Heimlich Maneuver our goal is to go through the abdomen, get underneath the diaphragm, push upward, increase the pressure in the chest, knock that obstruction out, but in a pregnant female we can't do that. The baby is occupying that space so our approach, now, is to move to the center of the chest, or the lower third of the sternum. Place yourself behind the victim, bring one hand around the lower half of the sternum, wrap the other hand around, and you're going to give two inches straight in, almost like you're doing chest compressions, but you're going to give the compressions straight in while simultaneously squeezing the whole chest, so we're trying to squeeze the thoracic cage, increase that pressure, and knock that obstruction out. You're gonna continue these maneuvers until either the obstruction comes up, of the victim becomes unresponsive.
I'm Mark for CPR Certification Institute. Thank you for watching today's video on pregnant choking. What? Need your CPR card today? No problem. Just log onto CPRCertification.com and get started. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next video.