Eli5: When doing CPR, why does it help to breathe into the person’s mouth, when we exhale co2?
In: Biology
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We are not exhaling into their mouths. An exhale is the natural course of breathing to remove the CO2. In CPR we are taking a breath of air into our mouths and blowing that into the recipients mouth. The air does not go through our respiratory tract and into our lungs/circulation so oxygen is not removed and it does not have the same CO2 by-priduct produced by natural breathing and circulation.
~~When you breathe normally, your lungs only absorb about 5% of the oxygen you inhale.~~ (edit: see response below) That oxygen is then replaced by c02. The air you exhale still has plenty of oxygen left in it.
We don’t pull all of the oxygen out of every breath we take and a little oxygen is better than none.
I hope this comment doesn’t get deleted.
The air you exhale still has enough oxygen, in other words, it is better than nothing. And if you need to do CPR is because the patient gets nothing otherwise.
PLEASE NOTE: in my my last first aid training I was told that chest compressions are way more important than mouth to mouth. UNLESS you can use a mask or mouth barrier, you don’t give mouth to mouth.
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