Child CPR and Choking

IF ALONE WITH A CHILD WHO IS CHOKING OR NEEDS CPR...


  1. Shout for help
  2. Start rescue effort
  3. Call 911

Note: The techniques below are for infants younger than 1 year

Difference Between a Child Who is Choking and an Infant Who Needs CPR

  • An child who is choking is SILENT (unable to breathe, cough, cry, or speak) but is AWAKE 
  • An child who needs CPR is unconscious or unresponsive for any reason

Techniques for Child Choking

Abdominal Thrusts

  1. Do NOT put your finger into the child’s mouth to remove the object. Your finger could push the object deeper into the child’s throat.
  2. Stand or kneel behind the child and wrap your arms around their waist.
  3. Make a fist with one hand.
  4. Place the thumb-side of your fist into the child’s belly just above the bellybutton (navel).
  5. Grasp your fist with your other hand.
  6. Use fast, short motions to thrust inward and upward, giving 5 quick abdominal thrusts. Don’t lift the child off the floor while doing this.
  7. Continue abdominal thrusts until the object is dislodged, the child can cough and breathe, the child becomes unconscious, or help arrives.

If the Child becomes unconscious/unresponsive, begin CPR.

Techniques for Child CPR (30:2)

To be used when the child is unconscious/unresponsive. It's of utmost importance to place the childon a flat, hard surface.

  1. Start chest compressions
    1. Place one of your hands on top of the other and clasp them together.
    2. With the heel of the hands and straight elbows, push hard and fast in the center of the chest, slightly below the nipples.
    3. Press down to at least 1/3 depth of the child's chest, or about 2 inches. You can use 2 hands if you need to.
    4. After each compression, allow chest to return to normal position. Compress chest at rate of at least 100 times per minute
    5. Do 30 compressions
  2. Open airway
    1. Open airway (head tilt-chin lift)
    2. If you see a foreign body, take it out. Do NOT do blind finger sweeps
  3. Start rescue breathing
    1. Take a normal breath
    2.  Place your mouth over their mouth, or pinch the nose shut, and puff 2 breaths into the child's mouth.
    3. Give 2 breaths, each for 1 second. Each breath should make the chest rise
    4. Give another breath if chest does not rise, but do not interrupt compressions for longer than 10 seconds
  4. Resume chest compressions
    1. Continue with cycles of 30 compressions to 2 breaths
    2. After 5 cycles of compressions and breaths, if no one has called 911, leave or take child with you if the child is not injured and call 911. Then return and continue chest compressions/breaths.