Chapter 30 - Emergency Resuscitation Algorithms: Infants and Children

Summary

Healthcare practitioners must always be prepared for an emergency situation in which they are responsible for the initial resuscitation of their patient. While the principles behind the emergency resuscitation of adults can be broadly applied to pediatric patients, there are many important differences to be noted. In infants and children, cardiac arrest most commonly occurs as the end result of progressive respiratory failure – hypoxemia, hypercapnia, and acidosis leading to bradycardia and hypotension, and, ultimately, cardiac arrest. This is in contrast to adults, in whom cardiac arrest is most often due to a primary cardiac cause. Pulseless ventricular tachycardia (VT) and ventricular fibrillation (VF) are found as the initial cardiac rhythm in approximately 7–10% of pediatric patients, with their incidence increasing with age. This chapter outlines an approach toward the resuscitation of pediatric patients adapted from the 2020 American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and emergency cardiovascular care [1].