It takes nine months for a life to be welcomed into this world but only a few seconds for it to be taken away. The law firm Martin, Harding & Mazzotti doesn’t want families to lose any of those precious seconds and recently donated infant CPR kits to give parents of prematurely born or sick babies some piece of mind as they prepare to take their infant home.
On Wednesday, June 27, the law firm, which is a big supporter of the American Heart Association, donated 100 infant CPR kits to Albany Medical Center’s NICU.
“They provide parents with one more tool as they take their children home,” said Katherine McCarthy, who is the senior regional director of communications for the American Heart Association.
The kits were designed to demonstrate the simplicity of learning infant CPR, and to help educate parents of children who were discharged from the NICU on oxygen about health issues that may come up outside of the hospital.
“Parents tend to be afraid to perform CPR on their little babies, assuming they will hurt them further,” said Rosemarie Bogdan, a partner of Martin, Harding & Mazzotti.
An educational DVD that moves step by step through the CPR process is an attempt to quell that fear. The NICU also offers a class for the parents before they leave for home with their babies.
Bob Elling, a Capital Region Advisory Board Member of the American Heart Association and Colonie paramedic, said the kit will instill confidence in these parents, which will lead to less confusion when it comes to performing CPR.
“These kits really make it kind of easy,” he said.
As a paramedic and someone who has performed CPR on countless patients, Elling said he can’t stress enough the importance of knowing CPR.
“We feel very strongly that everyone needs to know CPR,” said Elling.
By performing CPR, a person keeps oxygenated blood flowing to the heart and brain in an effort to preserve brain function. Regaining oxygenated blood flow after four to six minutes can cause the patient severe brain trauma.
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), was developed by the American Heart Association about 50 years ago. Twelve years later, Leonard Cobb of Seattle, Washington, organized the first ever mass citizen training in CPR. From that point on the basic life skill has saved about 92,000 people each year and in Seattle, around 40 percent of the population knew how to perform CPR. With their survival rate for cardiac arrest at 50 percent, Seattle became the poster child for successful CPR.
“Every state should be the same way. The nationwide percentage should be upwards of 50 percent,” said Elling. “CPR lessons in high school are a necessity. They shouldn’t have to take a class outside of school to learn a basic life skill that is proven to save lives. The inexpensive lessons would prove to be extraordinary in the short run and long run.”
Elling applauded Martin, Harding & Mazzotti’s donation of the infant CPR kits.
Bogdan called the donation “a great way to help the youngest and littlest members of our community.”
