Teaching baby CPR with a memorable musical twist

We’ve launched Nursery Rhymes Inc. a campaign that teaches parents and the wider public how to help a baby who’s stopped breathing. New research shows that this is the first aid emergency parents are most worried about, yet only one in four know how to help.*

Nursery Rhymes Inc. teaches baby CPR in a short, clear, and reassuring way to help parents remember what to do in an emergency.

The campaign video

The campaign features everyone’s favourite nursery rhyme characters. They come together to create a memorable rhyme to explain how to do baby CPR. Incy Wincy Spider, Humpty Dumpty, Jack & Jill, and the Cat & the Fiddle feature in the video struggling to write the rhyme. They have more luck in the longer online version where they make baby CPR truly unforgettable in just two minutes with a catchy song.

Nursery Rhymes Inc. follows on from last year’s award winning The Chokeables, which taught parents how to help a choking baby. Since its launch, The Chokeables is credited with saving the lives of 46 children. The video, which has had over 10 million views online, forms part of our vision that everyone should know first aid.

Our new research shows:

• An unconscious and not breathing child is the most frightening scenario for three out of four parents (74%)
• Yet only one in four parents (26%) would know how to correctly administer baby CPR
• Most parents who know first aid (62%) learned it through a workplace first aid course – yet baby CPR is different to adult CPR (for example, you need to cover the baby’s nose and mouth when doing puffs, and you use two fingers to give pumps to the chest)
• Only one in four (26%) parents have learnt first aid specifically for babies

‘The Chokeables was a real step forward for us and the response was amazing. We’ve listened to parents and we know that they want to learn first aid skills in a way that’s easy and memorable. That’s what inspired us to create Nursery Rhymes Inc.

We know that a major barrier to parents learning is that baby CPR frightens them, so we’ve removed the fear factor and made it reassuring and as easy as possible to learn. We hope the song will stick in everyone’s heads! We’re asking everyone to share the video so that all parents, grandparents, and carers can learn what to do in those crucial minutes after a baby has stopped breathing.’

- Sue Killen, CEO at St John Ambulance

*research conducted by OnePoll on behalf of St John Ambulance of 2000 parents with 0-16 years olds in the UK, December 2015.