#HealthTip: Understanding the Benefits of Mouth-to-Mouth CPR 🫁
Have you ever found yourself wondering why blowing carbon dioxide into someone’s lungs during mouth-to-mouth CPR is actually beneficial? Well, let’s break it down for you!
### The Basics of CPR
When someone experiences cardiac arrest, their heart stops beating and they are no longer receiving oxygenated blood to their vital organs. Performing CPR helps to manually circulate blood through the body and deliver oxygen to the brain.
### Importance of Mouth-to-Mouth
While it is true that when you perform mouth-to-mouth CPR, you are indeed blowing carbon dioxide into the person’s lungs, the act of breathing for them helps to oxygenate their blood. By exhaling into their lungs, you are providing them with fresh oxygen that their body desperately needs.
### Oxygen Exchange Process
When you breathe out into the person’s airway, the oxygen in your breath exchanges with the carbon dioxide in their body. This process helps to increase the oxygen levels in their bloodstream, which in turn can improve their chances of survival.
### Remember the ABCs
Remember the ABCs of CPR – Airway, Breathing, Circulation. By ensuring the airway is clear and delivering breaths to the person in need, you are playing a crucial role in keeping them alive until professional help arrives.
### Call for Help
While performing CPR is important, it is also crucial to call emergency services immediately. Time is of the essence during a cardiac arrest, and the sooner professional medical attention is received, the better the person’s chances of survival.
### Practice Makes Perfect
Consider taking a CPR certification course to learn the proper techniques for performing CPR. This way, you can be confident in your abilities to help someone in need in an emergency situation.
Remember, performing CPR may seem daunting, but your actions could potentially save a life. Stay informed, prepared, and ready to act when the situation arises. 🫁💪
So, the next time you find yourself in a situation where CPR is needed, remember the importance of mouth-to-mouth and the role it plays in providing life-saving oxygen to those in need.
You are not a 100% efficient oxygen extraction machine. There’s still a lot of oxygen in your breath. Less than pure air would have, to be sure, but not 0%. (It’s actually about 16%-18% oxygen.) Your blood *is* pretty much saturated, but your breath is not depleted of oxygen in the doing.
Lungs that aren’t breathing are bringing in 0% new oxygen. *Some* is better than *none.*
Your inhales are about 20% O2, and your exhales are about 15% O2. That 15% O2 is still worth it.
Edit for more exact numbers: atmosphere (the general air) is listed at 21% oxygen, and most studies of exhales is at 16% oxygen. And it seems that what *really* matters is how much pressure the oxygen has, so as long as there’s at least 5% of oxygen at sea level pressures it will still be useful to have in your lungs (this is why space suits can be filled with pure oxygen, which is normally unhealthy, but at about 20% of the pressure). I was reading the [Breathing wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breathing).
1. You exhale about 75% of the oxygen you inhale
2. mouth to mouth isn’t beneficial. They don’t teach it anymore.
3. Chest compressions, chest compressions, chest compressions!
Honestly, CPR isn’t even considering doing mouth-to-mouth even worth it any more. Just do the chest compressions. Oxygenating the blood near the lungs is useless if the blood doesn’t flow, it puts the first responders at some risk of disease from the patient, and some other reasons.
So CPR of only chest compressions is considered acceptable… assuming it done properly. If you think there’s any chance you might need to give someone CPR, get proper first aid training. There is some nuance to how you do CPR, and done correctly it’s not pretty, like breaking ribs.
Actually, the air you exhale during CPR still contains about 16-17% oxygen, which is enough to help the person. The idea is to keep oxygenated blood flowing to the brain and other vital organs to buy time until professional help arrives. Plus, chest compressions are the real MVPs in CPR, they move blood around even if the person isn’t breathing.
It’s more about getting any kind of air into their lungs to keep oxygen flowing to vital organs. The chest compressions are the crucial part, but mouth-to-mouth can help too. Better to have some CO2 mixed with O2 than no air at all.
Thanks for all the helpful responses!
Common misunderstanding!
Air you breathe in: 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, ~1% argon.
Air you breathe out: 78% nitrogen, 17% oxygen, 4% carbon dioxide, 1% argon.
So what you exhale is still 17% oxygen, only down 4% from normal air (!), and it’s only 4% carbon dioxide.
**TLDR:** **Blowing in 17% oxygen with 4% CO2 is better than them getting no oxygen at all.**
How long can you hold your breath?
If you held your breath for a minute then did mouth to mouth you would be blowing carbon dioxide into their lungs. If you inhale then exhale a second later, then there will still be lots of usable oxygen in your breath.