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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023

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I believe the basic CPR training hasn't included rescue breaths in a while. Specifically they are nice to have, but continuing compressions is more useful in non-professional (read: watched training a year ago, no hands on experience) contexts.

This recommendation is focused on adults as they are far more likely to have cardiac arrest due to a non-aphyxial cause. If you found an adult lying on the street, without a pulse it would be likely that they had taken a breath moments ago and still had oxygen in their blood stream and performing chest compressions can help circulate that oxygen. However, the majority of pediatric cardiac arrests have an asphyxial cause, therefore it is still recommended to do rescue breathes to introduce oxygen back into the bloodstream. In the case of drowning, where the person is likely to be hypoxic it would be recommended to do rescue breaths to introduce oxygen back into the bloodstream.