I currently work in corrections and the annual CPR course they teach at my facility is not certified by AHA or American Red Cross. It is from the American Safety and Health Institute.
Anyway, while teaching the infant CPR portion, the instructor said you can perform CPR on an infant while carrying it on your arm. Since I was coming off of a long stretch of work nights and the course was during the day, I assumed my sleep-deprived self heard wrong. Later during the demonstration check-off one of my co-workers was having a hard time getting the infant dummy's chest to rise. She was having difficulty bending over the table due to a recent surgery. The instructor decided that this was the perfect time to reiterate the fact the you can perform infant CPR while holding the baby on your arm, head toward the crook of the elbow. Of course, my co-worker couldn't deliver effective breaths while holding the baby because it was impossible for her to correctly position the airway while holding the baby like that.
Did I miss something? When did they start teaching this technique? I thought I was going to fail the infant check off because I disagreed with this technique. In the past I have worked in newborn nurseries and in a NICU. I just find it hard to believe that this is an acceptable technique and I ruffled a few feathers when I politely tried to explain this to the instructor.
