13 years ago when I was heavily pregnant with my first child, I was sitting in a childbirth and parenting class when the instructor started to encourage us to take one of the infant CPR courses the hospital offered. “You need to learn how to save your baby’s life,” she said. “If your infant stops breathing or starts choking and you don’t know how to do infant CPR or Heimlich, the baby will surely die.” That’s exactly how she said it: “The baby will surely die.”
That was enough to scare the crap out of my new-mom self, and when my son was just a few weeks old, I took the class.
I’ve NEVER had to use it…but I am so glad I know how.
And so is Jennifer Hull, the mom of two girls, one-year-old Hollis and her older sister Hatilynn. In the video above, Hull recounts how her girls were enjoying a snack of veggie chips when Hollis ran to her mom, blue in the face. Jennifer realized she was choking and without missing a beat, remembered what she had learned in class and started performing the Heimlich maneuver on little Hollis. Almost immediately, the offending piece of food came flying out, and Hollis could breathe.
