First aid
14 articles
What to Do If a Child Is Choking
Your child is choking. They cannot cough, cry, or breathe. You have seconds to respond. Knowing exactly what to do—whether to perform back blows, ches...
What to Do if a Child Falls Into Water
Despite all prevention efforts, water emergencies can still occur. Knowing how to respond if a child falls into water or becomes unresponsive in water...
Cuts and Scrapes: What to Do at Home and What Needs Stitches
A lot of long-standing first-aid advice for cuts and scrapes was wrong. Hydrogen peroxide and iodine, the two staples of every parent's first aid box,...
First Aid Every Parent Should Actually Have in Their Head
The reality of parental first aid is that you'll use it rarely, and when you do, you'll have about 30 seconds before adrenaline takes over. The list o...
When a Child Falls: Sorting the Bumps from the Real Trouble
By the time a child can walk, they will have fallen hundreds of times. Most of those falls will produce nothing more than a startle, a brief cry, and...
When a Child Swallows Something They Shouldn't: A Triage Guide
By the time a child can crawl, they will put almost anything that fits into their mouth. Most of the time, the result is a wet, slightly chewed object...
Diarrhoea in Young Children: First Aid and Home Management
A toddler with proper diarrhoea — six, eight, ten loose stools a day — is exhausting, messy, and can be worrying. The reassuring part: in the under-5...
Signs of Choking in Babies and Young Children: How to Tell
The popular image of choking — a dramatic coughing fit, hands flying to the throat — is the lucky version. The dangerous version is silent. A child wh...
Keeping Your Child Safe: A Complete Home and Outdoor Safety Guide
A child needs to fall over to learn how not to fall, and a parent who tries to stop every bump ends up exhausted and produces a less coordinated child...
Bruises in Children: Normal Bumps and When to Be Concerned
Toddlers bruise constantly. Newly mobile bodies, no judgement about heights or hard edges, and dozens of falls a week produce a steady supply of bumps...
Swallowed Objects in Children: What to Do and When to Act
The "did they just swallow that?" moment is universal toddler parenting. The good news is that most things a child swallows go through harmlessly — th...
Infant and Child CPR: What Every Parent Should Know
This is the article you hope you never need. Most parents never will. But the gap between knowing roughly what to do in the first two minutes of a pae...
Head Injuries in Children: When to Worry and When to Wait
Children fall on their heads. Frequently, in many cases. The toddler who tumbles off the sofa, the preschooler who runs headlong into a door frame, th...
Burns and Scalds in Children: First Aid and When to Seek Help
Burns and scalds are among the most common serious injuries in young children, and almost everything that matters for the long-term outcome happens in...