Learn about the importance of knowing CPR and how to handle emergencies.

 In this episode of the Baby Pro podcast, Brandon Doerksen, a CPR instructor and father of three, as he courageously equips parents with the life-saving skills and knowledge they need to confidently protect their children from choking and drowning emergencies.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

• How can parents gain confidence in life-saving skills for their children?

• What can parents do to prevent their children from drowning?

• How can parents make their home safer for their children?

Connect with Brandon and learn how to keep your children safe:

CPR class: https://courses.thrivetraininginstitute.com/courses/cpr-aed?ref=7ddd6b

Brandon’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivetraininginstitute/

Episode Transcript:

This week with Brandon from the Thrive Training Institute all about the importance of learning CPR and infant safety. 

I have a special guest here to talk to you all about CPR in infancy. Brandon Dirksen is a certified CPR instructor with a passion for teaching life saving skills. His online CPR and safety training has helped over 15,000 families learn life saving skills from home. He’s a dad of three and knows the fears that come with having children what to do if they choke or drown or go unconscious. These fears drove Brandon to find answers and solutions. And that’s why he’s here today trained and safety skills and wanting to help provide the same relief for other families. Brandon wants every family to know CPR and emergency response skills. Whether you’re a first time learner or need a refresher, Brandon is here to guide you through the process and provide you with the skills and knowledge needed to save a life. Let’s work together to make our community safer and more prepared for emergencies.

Hey, Brandon, how are you?

Doing? So good, Shelly. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast.

Yeah, I was really excited when we connected because it is such an important topic. And I’m a huge believer in you know, every family knowing these basic life saving skills like the CPR and choking

absolutely, yeah, we we got started really wanting to be able to help families that didn’t know what to do. And mostly most CPR training is geared towards medical professionals or people that require CPR training for their jobs. So our goal, my wife, and I was to, as a CPR instructor, bring the CPR knowledge back in front of parents so that parents can actually get confidence in these life saving skills that so many parents wish they had.

And do you feel like parents are excited to take CPR classes? 

Shelly: Or do you think there’s, I know that there’s like a mentality sometimes around well, if like Murphy’s Law, if you take the and you learn these skills, then you’re something’s going to happen and will make you use the skills and nobody wants that.

Brandon: Sure. I think there’s a lot of that. And that’s something we can dive into even further on the podcast. But I think one of the most limiting beliefs a lot parents face is if I look into this, it will make my anxiety bigger, make my fear of this happening greater. And where you know, you don’t want to like replay that something bad will happen in your life, being prepared to be able to take action from a place of confidence really helps a lot of parents. And so I’ve seen the opposite take place. So when parents come into our community come into our circle, and actually learn what to do they watch the videos, they get the confidence, then they actually share, Wow, I feel so much more confident to be able to face these things. And it kind of can let that anxiety rest and kind of like the what if be put to put to death for better of a lack of lack of better words, that they can actually know that in an emergency, which hopefully never happens. They have the skills, they have the knowledge to help their own child as well as possibly another parents child. And that’s a really powerful place to be as a parent, that’s your child, your your child’s first responder you’re, you’re on the front lines, and that’s parents love having that confidence.

And is that how you feel? Because I know you have you have children of your own? And were you CPR? were you teaching CPR before you had children? Or did that come after?

No, that’s a great question. So this a little bit of my backstory is when it going into adulthood, I actually was doing a lot of volunteer work overseas. When we started our family, my wife and I, for my first two kids actually didn’t have CPR knowledge. It was right. It was right a couple of years ago where I started gaining all these tools and skills. And so it didn’t start off with the same level of confidence that I have now. And I’ve seen a lot of parents have a similar experience. And so it wasn’t until later on that I actually became a CPR instructor. And now we have three kids. So it’s been a little different now. Now my kids are six, four and one at the time of recording this. And I tend to be not more of an anxious person, but think about worst case scenarios. And so for me, it’s like, okay, we’re feeding them, like, what could happen, what could go wrong. And as I went down this journey of becoming a CPR instructor of interacting with parents and hearing their biggest concerns, was able to see I was able to experience this transformation my own life where I was able to have the skills to remove a choking obstruction if my infant were to choke my toddler were to choke. Having that in my back pocket was such a transformational experience that I wanted to be able to give that to other families because I didn’t have it when I when I first got started and I’m sure you know as a lactation consultant that when you meet with a lot of first time parents that are this is the end know that moms have, you know, the second child or the third child could be could have trouble feeding and need any assistance there. But, you know, a lot of times we’re learning these things for the first time as parents and Knowing what to do during a choking emergency is one of those skills that we’re not really taught unless our jobs required it. And so I was in that boat as doing ministry and being a volunteer, CPR wasn’t something I knew. And so I wanted to be able to help other parents go through that, that experience and, and feel that confidence if it didn’t have that I didn’t have when I was getting started as a parent.

Yeah. And I totally understand that feeling. I didn’t have any CPR knowledge when I had my kids to but when I went to nursing school, of course, it was required. Yeah, at that point, and I am so glad that it is because like I said, I left the training, feeling so much more confident in that I can at least be helpful. And an emergency situation. Absolutely. So now you have the Thrive Training Institute.

How long did that take to get Thrive Training Institute off the ground?

Yeah, no, that’s a great question. It was actually what’s crazy is we’re pretty young as a company. So during COVID, we were like everybody else, just reevaluating life. It was a deep healing season in my family. Just internally in our marriage, in our in our in everything about us was being reshaped. And it was in that time where we had seen this need to be able to help families. And so during 2020 is actually when we started connecting with other child development experts, feeding specialists, I became a CPR instructor. And we started sharing about this opportunity for parents to learn CPR. And so through, through Thrive Training Institute review started coming in that parents were having transformational experiences. 

At the beginning, we more just had it available as a general like this is for anybody. And then we really, in that first year really said this is for parents, because parents were the ones that were saying I want to go through this, I want to go through this and probably 90% of our students are parents. And so what we did is we our first year, we actually didn’t even have social media. So the videos that everybody sees now, I wasn’t I wasn’t doing those yet. I only started doing that in the last 6-12 months. And so what we did, we first started connecting with other child development experts and other creators and influencers on social media to be able to get the word out, we’ve been able to train close to 20,000 families, which is so cool, since starting in 2020. 

A really pivotal moment for us was when I got my first email, just on a random day from a parent that rescued their own children, their own child from going through the course. And for me that was like, Oh, this isn’t like just something that people are enjoying going through this is like actually saving lives. And she shared the story that her her daughter had taken the biggest bite of strawberry, she ever dare taken her her life so far. And she was eight months old. And she had she was gagging and coughing and not still breathing. And so the the mom knew not to just reach her finger in her mouth and try to pull that thing out, or she was letting her cough. And then it actually got lodged in her throat. And she started turning blue. And so the mom picked her up and gave her to to back blows between the shoulder blades and remove the object. 

The email and said we were crying and I was holding her and she was safe. And she said “had I not gone through the course. I’m not sure I would have had the same the same outcome.” And I was like, wow. So that’s that’s kind of been the journey that has gone on. You know, kids have a gagging episode, which is not an emergency. 

So I had a parent message from a video she saw during Thanksgiving, her child’s choked on turkey of all things and said thank you so much. I saw your video the day before. And I was able to tie me Yeah, I was able to take action I’ve even had until you could speak to this a little bit. I have a lot of parents that are concerned about their child choking on milk, like breast milk or formula, which is kind of interesting when we could maybe dive into that but parents messaged me like my child was choking, not breathing. They were turning blue i i use the backflows you said and got them breathing again. So that’s been a little bit of our journey. It was collaborating with other creators such as yourself, and then doing everything we can to provide as much value and educational material through through social media.

The difference between gagging and choking

Yeah, I love that. I know a lot of parents especially when you start to introduce solid foods, the anxiety around choking can definitely ramp up there too. And I love how you pointed out there’s a difference between gagging and choking. Yeah. And could you go a little bit more into that, because I do find that a lot of parents do think that their baby is choking, when babies actually just get I don’t want to say just gagging. 

Gagging is when the gag reflex, is activated. Once a child showing signs of readiness at around six months of age, they’re sitting up there showing interest in food variable support themselves, the gag reflex is going to be further forward in the palate, in the mouth. What happens is, as we introduce new textures to our child, and whether you’re following a baby led weaning approach, or a puree or even a mixture of approaches that gag reflexes further forward on the tongue. So when your child gags, that’s their body’s way of protecting the airway. It’s like, oh, that’s a new thing. It’s a foreign thing. Or maybe I got too much, I’m not familiar with this. And so when they gag their tongue thrust forward, and it’s a it’s a protective mechanism to keep the airway protected. And so if you’re in that phase, right now you’re introducing solids and your kids gagging, you’re like, I’m never going to feed them again. That will move further back into the into the mouth as they mature and develop, it’s only going to take a few months. 

So if your child’s gagging, and coughing, and they could be red, they could be unpleasant to watch. They’re not choking, because they’re still getting oxygen in, their airways not blocked. Do we have some minor interruptions as the gag happens, and it kind of feels like all of all of eternity stops for a minute, like, are we good here, and it’s like, oh, they’re they’re coughing. Now they’re good. 

When it turns into a choking episode, like a real choking obstruction is when the airway is partially blocked, or completely blocked. And so that means that the object didn’t go down the esophagus and went the other way, which there’s a flap that closes as they swallow. And so if it’s actually blocking the airway for an infant, and this is really scary, they’re going to start to turn blue. 

How to remember when to step in a gag/coughing episode

And so an easy phrase to remember is, if they’re coughing, and red, let them go ahead. If they’re unable to breathe, and blue, they need help from you. And so your child will gag, and your child will have coughing, and all of that will happen. It’s kind of like the training wheels, when they’re starting to eat, your child is not guaranteed to have a choking episode. Choking is rare. It does happen, though. 

So those are the signs to look for is if the child’s no longer breathing. And so infants, especially, have a very high respiratory rate, that means that they’re breathing very frequently. I don’t know the exact number, but it’s like a lot. And as we as the child develops, the respiratory rate slows. And then as we get into adulthood, we breathe less, less often per minute. But infants are very oxygen dependent. So they’re breathing all the time. So if your infant’s not getting air, it’s going to be obvious. And you’re going to need to take action to remove that, that obstruction to help them by creating a forced cough using the CPR techniques that we teach.

I usually tell parents like we want, if your baby’s gagging, that’s a good thing. That means that their body’s protective, defensive mechanisms are in place and working properly.

Absolutely. And if they even have the ability for them to create a strong cough is a good thing because it can close them out for a second and cough and breathe through the nose and cough are always moving. Yeah, there’s moving our little guy, he had a pretty significant tongue restriction with a tongue tie. And I know, there’s no there’s a lot of theories of thought around tongue ties lip ties. For us, we worked with a team of holistic practitioners in Malley of all places, Maui, Hawaii. And what we were looking for is the function in his functioning, there’s a lot of clicking, he was getting a lot of air, there’s a lot of restriction in his body. And even after doing body work, lactation consulting, and all this stuff, chiropractic, there was still the restriction so we actually had a frenectomy it’s a tongue tie release done there. And you his symptoms, or his his ability to feed and get less air changed drastically after that procedure. And so I’m sure you see all sorts of things from severe tongue ties, or there could just have been birth trauma. So every child is going to be different. And for him, like it’s at the beginning, as he was starting to feed, he wasn’t able to produce a strong cough yet. And so we’re seeing that now at 12 months, a much stronger cough, he would kind of just gag and just hold his mouth open and I’m like, “Dude, are you gonna cough like, we need that we need to get this out.” 

If you’re a parent, and you’re kind of like my kids unique or our kids are unique, and every story is different, but just wanted to give you some empathy from one parent to another that your kid’s going to have a unique feeding journey. It might include working with with Shelly, it might include feeding therapy. But for most kids, if your child’s gagging, there’s nothing abnormal about them just, it’s a natural process that the body goes through to get ready for for more diverse foods and for the mouth to continue to expand and develop in a in a safe manner.

I love that you bring that up because you know it, that’s something that parents should be aware of, too. Because if you do have a baby who has a tongue tie, sometimes they do struggle with solid foods, because they have trouble moving their tongue to form the food into an appropriate bolus to send down their throat nice and smooth. So yes, it’s normal for babies to kind of Gag and cough. But if it’s a persistent problem, that doesn’t seem to be going away, especially as the baby starts to get a little older, that would definitely be something worth checking out.

So what what classes do you teach at Thrive Training Institute? You mentioned that infant CPR when teaching?

Well, this for anybody that just kind of entered an introduction to the CPR world for anybody that this this is new for, because it was new for me this a couple years ago. So typically, when when a parent goes to or anybody goes to a CPR training, generally, they’ll either be just cover adult CPR, or it will also cover pediatric which has child and infant CPR. 

However, our CPR training, I call it our parent CPR course, it is a general CPR training, but we cover all ages. And so oftentimes parents will tell me in the CPR training they did for their work, that the infant child portion is very short. And so for us in our CPR training, we cover infant what to do if they were to choke, if they were in cardiac arrest, and they’re not breathing their hearts not working very rare. Again, most cardiac arrests happen in adults over 60. But we tell you what to do, how to give chest compressions, how to get rescue breaths, the same for a toddler through school age up into adulthood. 

There’s some minor variations, but we really make sure to touch on those so that parents know that. So we have our parents CPR training, we also have our essential first aid training, which is going to cover all the general first day topics, giving parents the tools to know how to assess, and address and know when to call emergency responders. And so that one gives parents a lot of peace of mind, talk about allergic reactions, heat related emergencies inside of that, that first aid course. 

We also have our drowning prevention course, which is something as we get closer to summer, we’ll be talking about a lot just because drowning is preventable. One of the biggest things, it’s cool for parents to realize is you can reduce the risk of your child drowning, if they’re between the ages of one to four by 88% if they are able to get professional swim lessons. And so that’s, that’s something that we’re making a priority this year is really getting our children’s swimming ability proficient, because you can reduce so much we talk about all the ways you can prevent drowning and that drowning course before they swim while the swim and after they swim, which is crucial for so many families, there’s, I’m sure there’s a few more. 

There’s also the childproof home, of course, so we created which is a room by room checklist and video guide that gives first time parents second time parents, the the tools to build a child through each room, make sure that all cleaning supplies, we don’t really recommend having, you know, poisons too many poisons in your home at all. But we have, we try to use natural cleaners as much as possible, but to make sure that things are safely locked away that there aren’t choking hazards. So there’s our childproof home course that walks parents through the whole house. 

We also have an infant and child fever course. And that what that does is, as a parent, I thought that all the fevers can get to a temperature that’s too high. And then it’s like, oh, brain damage is going to happen and all these things that you hear, and actually that the brain damage can occur through a fever unless it’s medically induced. And so or if there’s entrapment, I don’t know why I’m blanking on the name of the part of the brain that it is the temperature control center, but that won’t actually allow the body’s temperature to go to an unsafe level, you actually get to have to get to over 108 degrees for a fever for to actually cause brain damage. And so that that course is a lot about debunking fever myths and giving parents a lot of tools there. 

We recently put into one training bundle, called the complete child safety training bundle so the parents can get all of it, as well as have the ability to add their caregivers. So we give them the option to add unlimited caregivers. So if the grandparents watched the kids, babysitter, if there’s a family member that watches the kids, that they can also get the same training courses when people sign up and so that’s been those have been the courses we’ve put our heart and soul into to be able to help help families get to a greater level of confidence when it comes to keeping their child safe.

I love that you do you add in the family members because, you know, if you’re if your kids at a daycare center or something like that they’re all going to be certified by law. And if you’re hiring a good nanny, anyway, good anyway, to make sure that they’re certified as well. But like even the grandparents, you know, if you know, you’re the grandparents gonna be watching the kids. And that’s something that I would always tell the families, pre COVID When I was teaching, like newborn care classes, and I always be like, listen, I know, there’s a lot of classes that you can take out there. And I’m not going to tell you that you should or shouldn’t take these classes, except for this, you should learn CPR. Because if you ever need it, you’re never going to regret having it and have the grandparents sign up. Because especially if they’re going to be watching, you know, if they retire, they’re going to be the primary daycare provider, you want to make sure that they know what to do in the case of emergency.

Paying for safety training

Yeah, and a lot of times grandparents also want to help out so when people are looking to pay for the training, like say, Hey, grandma, grandpa, like we’re, we want you to be able to go through this as well. Like, can we split the cost and that’s a real practical way that a lot of families pay for the training as well.

Yeah, or even a baby shower gift. Really, if you’re looking for ways to like get into the class. Because you’re not going to use that you’re not going to use like the $1,000 bassinet for too long, but you can choose you can get some training and CPR.

You have the choking class, can you go over like a brief summary of that one? 

The choking and the choking Prevention and Response course that I created. We have so many different choking prevention courses. But the there’s a free webinar that we’re also doing but then a paid course it’s involved in the complete child safety bundle that I forgot to mention was our choking Prevention and Response course that I created with two feeding experts. Katie Ferraro from Baby led weaning team and then Don Winckelmann from Miss Dawn SLP. She’s a speech language pathologist, and they both specialize in baby led weaning, I created a course that we all three taught on it’s really getting parents ready for introducing solid foods. And so we talked about highchair, safety Donlin come and talks about how the the oral, like how oral function works, and the development for an infant. We talk about choking hazard foods and how to avoid them. And then Katy also talks about the difference between choking and having an allergic reaction. And so there’s some really valuable content inside of inside of that training that we’ve had a lot of parents get a lot of get a lot of value out of. So that’s included as well inside of the complete child safety training bundle, or it can be purchased separately for $97. And we’ve had a lot of really cool stories come from from that training as well.

And what are the top choking hazards when they start food?

Yeah, no, let’s dive into it. Yeah, I think so. A couple of things to be aware of is food is something that kids choke on. But it’s often it’s household objects, it’s non food items that are going to account for more choking incidences than food. So I know that around food is where parents tend to think, okay, my child’s going to choke while they eat. And yes, there every I believe it’s every four days a child under five does die from choking on food. And so choking can be prevented by the safely preparing the food. And so choking hazard foods are the ones that are: 

• hard
• round
• cylindrical
• sticky foods

So it’s a couple of things like grapes, cherry tomatoes, things that that before 12 months, they need to be cut lengthwise, twice hot dogs. 

And so because if you cut a hot dog, and it’s a cylindrical shape, that’s the perfect size for it to get lodged in and be very difficult to remove. And so for when you’re starting off feeding your child, you want to make sure that that you’re safely preparing these, these food items to reduce the choking risk. 

When it comes to nut butters like peanut butter, almond butter, those ones you want to be careful with, you want to make sure that consistency is not super pasty and sticky to where they can’t get it, there’s not enough saliva and they’re not able to safely swallow that nut butter. 

But when it comes to household objects, that’s actually going to be the biggest one where it’s that maybe there wasn’t a acute awareness of like, Oh, there they have something in their mouth, because when you’re when they’re feeding you’re with them. And so for household objects, some of the biggest ones are batteries. Batteries are very dangerous, normal batteries, but button shaped batteries specifically because they just look interesting to kids to crawlers and my son’s age. And so I would make sure you don’t have like the battery drawer be the the end table at the couch, you know, it needs to be up and out of reach. Because if a child swallows a battery and it gets bigger it gets into their digestive system in their esophagus, it can burn and cause a lot of damage. And that’s going to require a potential surgery, it’s really just not not a good deal if a child swallows a battery, so you want to make the big those out of reach. 

Another one is like plastic bottle caps from disposable water bottles, you want to make sure that those are not just on the ground specifically at like a barbecue or a picnic where people are kind of more careless or going faster, maybe there’s older kids and they’re leaving the caps out. The bottles even have a choking hazard warning on them. And so we want to make sure that those get disposed of properly. 

A couple things for if you have older kids and younger kids like we do, we have a four and six year old, they can play with Legos, they can play with marbles, they can be around their art supplies. And it’s not a problem. But my one year old can’t because he sees a Lego and wants to put it in his mouth or finds a broken crayon and wants to put it in his mouth. I think we just got rid of the marbles, because those ones are just annoying, because they just fly around everywhere. And it’s just like, is there a marble? Like, is it safe? I don’t know. So we just got rid of our marbles. So when you have multiple aged kids, it can be nice to create a space where the other kids play where brother or sister can’t come and they know that they’re empowered in that. And then having a separate kind of yes space where there’s maybe a baby gate. And there’s not concern of is there is there tripping hazards in this room as well. It’s like having that be a separate space can be a game changer. So keep an eye out for those things. Also, like latex balloons are account for a lot of choking emergencies and hospitalizations and even deaths because there had a lot of birthday parties, they get popped. And then the pieces of the balloon are then left on the ground. And then a little crawler can can find one and that can be very difficult to remove. And so those are some of the key ones. Just anything that fits inside of a toilet paper roll in a circle could pose a choking risk for your child under three. And so it’s really important to you can walk around with a toilet paper roll like okay, this fits this doesn’t this fits this doesn’t to understand if your environment safe for your child. And that can be really helpful. We had an incident just just recently a couple of weeks ago, where we had like a little kids teapot toy, the lid doesn’t fit into a toilet paper roll, but my son had put it in his mouth. And he came around the corner and I was doing the dishes and he’s gagging and not breathing. And I’m like what’s going on like I couldn’t even see in his mouth. He had put the whole thing in his mouth so it wasn’t going down his throat. But it was activating his gag and like lodged behind his front teeth. So like it wasn’t he wasn’t he couldn’t get it out. And so you still want to be aware like what they’re putting in their mouth and we’re like well, that lids never coming out again. 

So, as a parent or caregiver or grandparent, don’t let this become something that does give you so much anxiety just create simple, clean spaces that have age appropriate toys for your kid and you can allow you can alleviate so much concern around choking but things are fit through a toilet paper roll we need to keep those things out of reach for quite some time up until you know I know your two year olds pretty pretty with it. But like up until around three is when those choking hazard cut off is because kids are putting their stuff in their mouth all the time which is developmentally normal. They’re trying to understand the textures and understand this whole new world they’re exploring.

I always find it helpful if I’m baby proofing to. And I tell parents this too, it’s easy to miss things. So if you can get down on your hands and knees and crawler at your house for a little bit and see your house, from your child’s perspective, and look for anything that might look like something, oh, I want to get into that.

Yes. And that’s a great tool, as well, if you’re at an Airbnb, an unfamiliar place, is to do a real thorough check. Because that’s, you know, I know as parents like, it can feel lonely at times, but no, you’re gonna want to hang out with other families do other things. And they might have not have a childproof home like you do and, and so like, our friends are so courteous when we come over like they like, take all the tables out, they have stuff on them, they’ve even at their rental had to move their fridge so we can because they don’t have like cabinet locks on their cabinet so that we’ve moved the fridge and we put this couch on the other side of the kitchen island. So that while there, My son can’t just easily make his way and start opening cupboards and pulling things out. And so it’s just from one parent to another. It’s it’s exhausting, sometimes like feeling like you’re always trying to like Chase chase around this little being and make sure they’re safe. And so doing some of that the pre work, the crawling around when you get somewhere, or when you’re creating a space for them as you’re it maybe you’re expecting and doing the work ahead of time makes it so you don’t have to chase them all the time. It’s so it’s important.

So it’s always good to have people that are there to support you and help you win to make to make safe spaces with you. So I completely understand.

Have you been hearing a lot of stories about water beads? 

For those of you who haven’t heard about these. I’ve played with them even church games with kids a couple years ago, I wasn’t aware, like a lot of parents are of the danger of water beads. And so as we all know, when you put the little beads of the water beads into water, they expand, which seemed cool, and kids enjoy playing with them as a sensory toy. And all that makes sense. The danger is with if a kid swallows some of the the dry beads, then those expand. And I think there’s a couple of kids that have they have store ongoing stories where there’s been blockages where they’re having to have surgeries to remove them either from the the intestines or the like there’s all this stuff. So they’re very dangerous if swallowed, because you could they could swallow a handful that they look like food and then all those are going to expand into those bigger beads that are not not ideal to have in your system. So I think there’s the choking risk like for them to be small, but primarily it’s the expansion of the bead once it’s already in the digestive tract. And that’s something I wouldn’t have those we don’t have any in our home. And I encourage parents to find a safer alternative to those just because of that, that reality that they could be swallowed and and expanded is very, very sad for the families that are having to work through that right now.

That’s that was actually going to be my next question is because I see all these videos all the time of like ER doctors say you know as an ER doctor here are things that I would never let in my house and it’s usually some version of trampolines and stuff like that. 

As someone in your position with your knowledge do you have like a running list of products that you would never allow in your house? And if yes, could you share some of those?

Yeah, one item actually forgot to mention that on the household like has choking hazard list and something that we recently made a decision for is, tacks. So our friends were giving us a hard time because they they didn’t even know people had tacks in their home anymore. “They’re what first grade teachers have” they said I’m like “well we have tacks like we put stuff on the wall.”

For us our our four year old six year old we have their their curtain with their blackout blinds. So like, we also have had in the past, we travel, we tack up the blackout curtains because it’s like you can’t, you’re not drilling a hole in a temporary place where you might put a tack on the wall. But our friends shared with us when they were volunteering at a preschool years ago that one of the kids swallow the tack. They weren’t there when it happened. And he actually passed away. So for us, we’re like, when we’re doing birthday parties, and we’re tacking stuff up, like, it’s possible for one to fall off the wall when we’re not looking in our one year old who doesn’t know that he can’t put those in his mouth could swallow one. And I was like, this is not necessary, so we threw them all away. And we can use tape instead. 

So for us tacks are on that list. And then we really value the like the quality of the things we put allow our kids to put in their mouth. And so for us, we try to make sure things that have a high toxic load that we’re careful with those. And so those are those are that’s on my list is tacks right now is that’s been my main focus, we got rid of the marbles, we got rid the tacks. 

So my strategy would be just, there’s so many things that we can do to help our kids, our older kids have sensory experiences and creative play, that don’t have to include choking hazards, because stuff just happens. 

It’s like you do everything you can to be prepared to prevent and things happen. And whether that’s for your your child, or if you’re at a park, and you’re the parent that’s like, hey, I can help your child I’m trained in CPR, I see their choking can I help them and that parents I please, I have no idea what to do. That’s the that’s the type of confidence we want to give parents because things happen. And our mission statement with Thrive training institute is to be able to have no parents say I wish I would have known. 

And so like a lot of parents that have lost kids to drowning, to choking to other emergencies. Say I wish I would have known that I could have prevented this, I wish I would have known what to do. And that’s why we’re trying to make safety knowledge choking safety. Viral is because every parent deserves to know this and it hasn’t been in the past, marketed or directed towards parents. It’s towards the medical professional, which is amazing. I want the guy in the ambulance to know how to keep me alive until I get to the hospital. I also want parents to not feel like if their child were to choke fit, the only option is to call 911 and wait. 

And if it’s okay, I’ll actually share a quick story about about that. A parent recently commented on one of our videos and said her son had choked on a Ritz cracker. And he’s choking, she called 911 They didn’t answer and then she didn’t get a call back for 23 minutes to see if things were okay. She luckily knew what to do, was able to give him back blows and get the object removed. But that was just like a wake up call; for reference in an urban area in the United States takes about six to eight minutes for an ambulance to arrive. If your child was choking, and they’re not getting oxygen. Brain damage happens at four minutes and by five to six minutes. The chance of survival is slim to none So by the time if your child was choking, and you don’t know how to give back flows and abdominal thrusts, remove it, the ambulance is not going to get there in time to be able to assist you. And if you live in a rural area where it’s 15-20 minutes away, it’s like, it’s not fair for parents to be told, Don’t worry, the medical professionals got it, you just sit back and relax. 

That’s kind of the American like Western medicine, it’s, we’re very much emergency minded and dependent on somebody else somewhere else. And so for us, it’s like, we’re giving that power back to the parents where you’re in charge, you’re the first responder, and it’s an injustice that you haven’t been told that you deserve to know what to do. And that this is your responsibility, not unlike a condemning way, we have no judgment for parents in our community that don’t know what to do. That’s why we’re here. We’re here to help. And so you don’t want to be in that place where you’re just waiting for somebody to come help. And to be left powerless. So our job is to give parents back the confidence, give them back their power. And that has been a really, really powerful journey.

I’ve never heard of somebody that 911 Not answering, and dispatch, dispatch should be able to walk you through a little bit what to do, but I don’t want to be have an audible teacher. Like, okay, you need to do this. And this, like, I can’t picture what you’re saying, and you’re panicking. So our job is to make sure that parents when they get when you go into fight or flight and a lot of parents, like they comment on videos, like I would freak out if this happened to my child, I’m like, Well, I hope you freak out. This is terrifying, right? But in the freaking out having in the subconscious, a prebuilt plan. And so when you have that prebuilt plan, then it’s not like, freak out, don’t do anything. It’s freak out and help. 

I imagine if even if you do need to be talked through, if you’ve taken the class, you’re going to start to remember everything in like, if you’re panicking, you can’t think you can’t remember what you learned. But the dispatcher is like, Okay, this is what you want to do, it’s going to come back to you. And you’re not going to feel as lost trying to follow their verbal directions for something that you have naturally no idea how exactly, yeah,

Those devices that you can buy to dislodge the item in the throat? It’s usually some sort of like section, what is your opinion on those?

When it comes to owning a section device, like a LifePak, a lot of parents opt to just purchase one, throw it in the kitchen closet and say I’m good. I have my, my choking fear is solved. The issue with that approach is, what if you don’t have one when you’re out and about, okay, maybe you have another in the car? Great. Well, if you’re at the park, and it’s in the car, that’s still three minutes to go get it. And so if you don’t have any clue what to do, then it’s it’s not it’s not beneficial to the parent because the anxiety still there, and they feel dependent on this device. So where I see it come in and so CPR is when you’re giving back blows or abdominal thrusts, you’re creating a forced cough from the inside out. So you’re taking the oxygen, the air that’s below the object and the lungs to push the object out by creating pressure either in the stomach or in the back. 

What happens with the LifePak is instead of creating the pressure from below the object, you’re Using the pressure from outside, some of the benefits from that is, if you’ve given several rounds of back blows and abdominal thrusts, and the object still hasn’t come out, each time we give an abdominal thrust, there’s a little bit of oxygen or air pushing past the object. And so there’s less air to use that’s under the object. And so after each back blow, each round, there’s less and less air that we can use to pop the object out. And so from the outside, there’s unlimited air, because we can pull it out. 

My strategy and what I would what I would do today, right now, if I had to jump off this call, and my life things, somebody keeps talking, she knows what to do, I would give five backflows, followed by five abdominal thrusts. And if they’re still choking, I would have already had either my wife or I getting the life pak. And he’d be able to use that because something weirds going on where the objects not coming out. So that’s, that’s how I would use it, I would do five and five, that should have already gotten out the object, like it should come out in the first one or two back blows. If it didn’t, then we’ve got something interesting going on. 

Another benefit is, if the child or the adult were to go unconscious, while you’re trying to get that choking, obstruction removed, if their bodies limp, there’s not much you can do to be able to try to use the techniques to get it out. And so it’s a lifepak, they can be used laying down. So if they go unconscious, you can still get the object out, get paramedics there, we can use chest compressions and, and rescue breaths to hopefully re kickstart everything and an ad if necessary. And so I see as a great backup tool that you don’t want to be solely dependent on, but having it in your back pocket. 

The American Heart Association released a study a few years ago that the Heimlich maneuver, so abdominal thrusts and back blows. So choking, first aid is about 80% effective at removing an object. And so at least 20% of the time where it’s still wasn’t working, for whatever reason. And so for even thinking about pregnant women, you can give, instead of having the hand be right above the belly button, you can go right below the breast on the breastbone and pull to create a forced cough. But if you don’t, we aren’t going to harm that we don’t wanna harm the baby. So like, they would be a prime candidate where life that could be used where we don’t want to have any interference with the body or the baby. 

Oftentimes, if there’s a child or the person in a wheelchair, and if that wheelchair doesn’t allow for you to properly perform those life saving techniques than life acts a great option there. Or if, let’s say, somebody’s five feet tall, and they’re trying to rescue somebody who’s six five, and they’re just not big enough to be able to give those life saving techniques to them, then a lifepak that could be used in that scenario. And you can also use it on yourself. And so it can be sometimes hard to like, you can you can give yourself abdominal thrusts, to remove your own choking obstruction, you can you can like throw yourself on a chair, but it might be a little easier to create the suction and pull it out under those those circumstances. So that’s my thoughts on the lifepak amazing device, there’s been no reported injuries to life back. There’s over 2 million in circulation. 

Do you feel like there’s one specific thing that parents aren’t aware that they should be doing or forget to do?

I would say the biggest thing that a lot of parents forget to do is to do things ahead of time. And so if you’re pregnant, or you’re going to be due soon, I would baby proof ahead of time. Let’s not wait until they’re crawling because you want to just be able to enjoy Oh, he’s crawling Oh, no, he’s grabbing that. And then you’re already maybe sleep deprived already a little tired. It’s on the the backburner. So I would say a lot of parents forget to do it ahead of time. That’s the same thing. Like learning how to introduce solid foods when your child needs to eat is a harder time to do it, then maybe a month prior two months prior. So we’ve run into that personally, as a family. We’ve seen other families deal with that. So I would always say baby proof ahead of time so you can just enjoy when they start walking. Oh, he’s opening cabinets like well, let’s just put the let’s just put the cabinet locks on ahead of time so that we can just enjoy that. So that would be my word of advice there.

At least 64% of parents take a childbirth class. But how many take the CPR class? I don’t know if you had that statistic or not?

So a couple statistics: 

• 60% of parents said that choking is their number one fear. 
• And only 4% of the population is trained annually and CPR. 
• So 96% don’t know what to do, or maybe had the course years ago. 

I feel like you’ve gotten really into the nitty gritty details, which is, you know, because when you’re a parent, you’re so sleep deprived, you’re missing 10% of your brain mass. So it’s so nice, where people can be like, yeah, we’re going to we’re going to teach you this. But also, here’s a handout to hang on your fridge because we know that probably you’ll forget some of it. Because you’re so sleep deprived. 

We’ve heard so at least we I actually created that because I’ve actually heard stories of parents that have printed it out and put it put different resources on their fridge. I’m like, Here, here’s the act. Here’s the one you can, here’s the one you can use. So we tried to listen to our feedback of our audience and what’s what’s going to help them the most.