Hayley Gardyj, a mother from Melksham, Wiltshire, who saved her baby’s life when he suddenly stopped breathing two years ago, is campaigning for infant CPR advice to be included in children’s “red books”. Her eight-week-old son Brodie, who was born prematurely and spent six weeks in neonatal intensive care at the Royal United Hospital (RUH) in Bath, was in the back of his mother’s car when he started a “forceful, painful cry.” Gardyj tried to settle him, but he became increasingly worse. When she moved him to the shade, Brodie stopped crying and began to limp. Gardyj ran to a nearby vet’s practice and began to perform CPR, something that she had learned from a paediatric first aid course years before.
Brodie eventually regained his heartbeat, and emergency services arrived and took him to the RUH. Medics later discovered he had suffered a collapsed lung caused by a viral infection. After the incident, Gardyj looked into what information was available to new parents about performing CPR. She is now campaigning for QR codes to be printed in red books or personal child health records, linking parents to a first aid training video. She has been featured in a training video by the British Red Cross for CPR on babies, which she wants to link to via a QR code printed in the red books.
The personal child health record (PCHR) is given to parents or carers at a child’s birth to record their health and development. Gardyj is calling for it to become a legal requirement for all new parents to be CPR-trained. Currently, the PCHR does not contain any information about CPR. Gardyj’s campaign has been passed to the chair of the PCHR committee and will be considered as part of the committee’s open suggestions for content.
Gardyj added she would like to ensure that every parent is doing something about CPR, saying “it can be quite a scary thing to do.” With her experience, she is urging parents to educate themselves as much as possible by taking classes and watching videos so that they can handle an emergency situation. It should be kept in mind that every second counts in a life-threatening situation, and every bit of knowledge could make a difference
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