Quick Bystander CPR Within Five Minutes Nearly Doubles Pediatric Cardiac Arrest Survival
TL;DR
Learning CPR gives you a critical advantage by nearly doubling a child's survival chances when administered within the crucial five-minute window after cardiac arrest.
CPR for children involves cycles of 30 chest compressions at 100-120 per minute followed by two breaths, with optimal effectiveness within five minutes of cardiac arrest.
Widespread CPR training creates a safer world where more children survive cardiac emergencies and communities become networks of prepared, life-saving responders.
Children have half the CPR time window of adults, with survival odds dropping dramatically after just five minutes following cardiac arrest.
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation performed within five minutes of a child's cardiac arrest nearly doubles their chances of survival, according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Heart Association's Resuscitation Science Symposium 2025. The study analyzed data from more than 10,000 children in the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES), a U.S. registry that tracks out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and includes data on more than 175 million people.
The research reveals that the optimal time window for initiating successful CPR in children may be half that of adults - just five minutes compared to ten minutes for adults. For children who received lay rescuer CPR compared to those who did not, the analysis found survival odds increased 91% when CPR started within one minute after cardiac arrest, 98% when initiated in two to three minutes, and 37% when performed in four to five minutes. However, survival odds decreased 24% when CPR began in six to seven minutes, 33% when performed in eight to nine minutes, and 41% when started ten minutes or more after cardiac arrest.
"If a child's heart suddenly stops, every second counts. Starting CPR immediately can nearly double their chances of survival," said lead study author Mohammad Abdel Jawad, M.D., M.S., a research fellow of the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute. "We found the time window is even more critical in children, so it is imperative to emphasize starting CPR as soon as possible after a cardiac arrest."
The study also analyzed whether the timing of CPR initiation by lay rescuers affected brain function, with similar patterns emerging between time to CPR and favorable brain survival. Among the 10,991 children who had an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, about half received bystander CPR, with a median time to receive lay rescuer CPR of three minutes. Overall, more than 15% of the children survived to hospital discharge, and nearly 13% had favorable brain function at discharge, with better outcomes observed when lay rescuer CPR was initiated within five minutes of cardiac arrest.
These findings have significant implications for public health education and emergency response systems. The research underscores the urgent need to increase CPR training among parents, family members, teachers, coaches and community members. According to American Heart Association data, nine out of every ten people who experience cardiac arrest outside of a hospital die, in part because they do not receive immediate CPR more than half of the time. The organization's Nation of Lifesavers movement aims to double cardiac arrest survival rates by 2030.
Future research could focus on how to shorten time to CPR even more, such as improved dispatcher instructions or broader implementation of CPR training in schools and during well-child visits. The complete research abstract can be found in the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions/Resuscitation Science Symposium 2025 Online Program Planner. The findings are considered preliminary until published as a full manuscript in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Curated from NewMediaWire