Annals of emergency medicine
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By comparing mouth-to-mouth ventilation to other methods, we tested whether there are significant differences among infant mannequin ventilation methods performed by emergency medical technicians-paramedics (EMT-Ps). Fifty-nine participants were evaluated in the performance of six ventilation methods; methods studied were mouth-to-mouth; two mouth-to-mask devices; and infant, pediatric, and adult bag-valve-mask devices. By measuring each breath, the percentage of acceptable ventilations in predetermined ranges, 5 to 25 mL/kg or 10 to 20 mL/kg, was calculated. ⋯ The correlation between years of prehospital experience and the number of resuscitations versus ventilation performance was poor. Single rescuer, EMT-Ps can successfully ventilate an infant mannequin with various size resuscitation bags. The Laerdal Pocket Mask is an ineffective device for infant mannequin ventilation and should not be recommended for infant resuscitation.