Hacker News Reader

Comment by hprotagonist | Hacker News Reader

For the obvious and purient reason.

Semi-related reasons at least partially explain why the AHA moved away from rescue breaths as part of CPR: they found high rates of total noncompliance because people don’t want to do that. Compressions only turns out to both be fine from a perfusion perspective and also increases bystander participation. I think not taking any breaks for breaths during compressions also reduces clotting, but i’m not sure.

The other reason to not bother with rescue breathing is that AEDs are everywhere now and you’re much more likely to get pads on someone promptly.

View on HN

Counterpoint, I'm a whitewater rescue instructor. My students and I are much more likely to see drowning victims than heart attack patients. Compression only CPR doesn't help drowning victims at all so we've had to add a "don't listen to your CPR instructor, do rescue breaths first" statement to our classes.

Yep, drowning (and cold water drowning in particular) gets special rules. And a better save rate, iirc…

> The other reason to not bother with rescue breathing is that AEDs are everywhere now

This is a very bold claim that needs a citation with data covering different locations and the number of devices per unit population.

I'm speaking slightly casually. Access to AEDs has expanded in public areas of the region of the world where AHA guidelines for CPR pertain so much that it is reasonable to expect prompt availability to one in the case of sudden cardiac arrest in public, and this has driven updates to CPR guidelines.

Better?

There is nothing obviously prurient about rescue breaths. More often than not, the rescuer will get a mouth full of blood, mucus and vomit for their trouble. There is nothing lascivious or sexual about it.

I agree; rescue breaths into a mouth of bloody vomit is something I avoided in emergency medicine too—with a laryngoscope and a BVM, but that’s because i brought an ambulance with me when i did CPR!

What is purient is the observed disparity between rate of CPR at all as a function of patient sex because tits are involved: ”A small survey found that people may worry that chest compressions by bystanders will seem improper or may hurt women.”

It was my understanding that rescue breaths lower overall compliance, and my comments expounding on it are largely separate from sex-linked concerns.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com