To buy a lifevac?

[mumto2dd]

I’ve seen a few adverts lately about lifevacs which are airway clearing devices.

I have one child age 2 and one on the way and it’s one of my biggest fears, choking.

It’d be around £150 for the home kit and a travel
kit to take on holiday etc.

DH & I have both completed first aid courses for adults, children and babies but I just feel like this would bring me peace of mind.

Would anyone else buy one or is pregnancy making me too impulsive with spending? 😂

We have one. Hope to never have to use it, but it's reassuring that it's there if needed.

I didnt know such a thing existed!

I will be buying one and would recommend it

I choked once and had to have some hard pats on the back - terrified of it happening again x

I’ve never come across these devices but a quick Google suggests that they are not particularly effective, and may add vital seconds ( probably minutes, locating device, setting it up and attempting to remove object) when you could be doing back slaps and phoning for assistance.
As an HCP who legally have to have resus kit ( AED etc) and chocking being a real risk in my speciality, we have never been advised to use these devices.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10278115/

Having had to deal with dd choking (proper blue silent choking) I would say you would be much better off with immediate effective first aid skills than faffing around looking for an unfamiliar piece of kit.

I've seen them discussed before, including a suggestion to make them available in all schools in Ireland that had much media comment a few years ago. In short, they are a terrible idea as they cause delays. People think they need to use them, then they have to find them, look at instructions, etc. All this goes on instead of treating the patient as soon as they are seen to be in distress. It is difficult enough to treat an emergency in.a child without throwing unfamiliar technology into the mix.

Edited: a previous poster has given a good link into one study of them.

They are not really recommended.

I bought one after seeing Facebook ads. I then did a really thorough first aid course through work and asked a paramedic what he thought of them. He said throw it away immediately - they can push the object further down the person's throat.

I work in care for a large care company. We have just removed these airway devices from all our services based on the fact that there’s not sufficient evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of them. The resuscitation council do not recommend them. We looked at incidents where they had been used in our services and there had only been a 50% success rate with them. It’s difficult to say whether we would have successfully dislodged the food by traditional methods anyhow. We found staff weren’t confident in using the devices even though they’d been trained and that at times they’d been used inappropriately. The risks of using them therefore outweighed the benefits of having them in place. I would advise having training in traditional first aid as opposed to these devices.

Grateful for the comments above but would add, their website is weird

It just goes on and on about why you shouldn't buy counterfeits and doesn't explain how the device actually works

As a childcare provider, we asked about them on our first aid course and the paramedic trainer said absolutely not.

Isn't that the same with a Defib tho.....takes more 'faffing' than CPR but surely still more effective if possible?
Or is the effectiveness debated aswell?

I guess the ideal is someone administers basic first aid whilst another sets up the device....however when someone is alone I can see there may be an issue.I have not seen or used a life vac though so don't know how easy or hard they are to use.
Maybe practicing beforehand might help.

The idea interests me....I'm someone who quite likes having things like that just in case (like the resqume car escape topls which we have in each car)

I once witnessed an elderly man choke in a restaurant. The Heimlich manoeuvre didn't dislodge the food. The restaurant was cleared as they performed CPR and we later found out he died.

I have a lifevac for situations like these. I always have a 'what if' about that man. In a situation where nothing else is working, I'd want a lifevac around to try.

Obviously back blows, Heimlich first, especially if you are the only one near the person choking. But when there is more than one person around to get the lifevac it's there as a last hope attempt.

You'll try anything in those situations.

Isn't that the same with a Defib tho.....takes more 'faffing' than CPR but surely still more effective if possible?

Yes and no.

Using a defib without cpr won’t work at all - if you can only do one do cpr.

But a defib does something completely different to cpr, it’s the next step.

The Lifevac is just a different way of doing the same thing ie trying to clear an obstruction. And there is no evidence it’s more effective. And the manufacturers don’t factor in unfamiliarity/difficulty of access when talking about how it works - abdo thrusts and back slaps are simple and you have the kit (your arms) to hand. The lifevac has to be found, unwrapped, and you have to know how to use it.

Yes, I know I'm waking a zombie thread but I wanted to follow up on this discussion. I know that the back slaps and Heimlich are better options but what about for someone who lives alone? Since my dad died, my mum has got really quite worried about what happens if she chokes when she's by herself (she had one bad episode in the year before dad died, where he was slapping her back etc and it took quite some effort to dislodge the food). I was going to buy her one of these, even just to settle her mind, but I'm not sure. Her nearest neighbours are not that near, so running outside and making a scene would take quite a lot of effort to be seen and heard.

I asked a first aid instructor friend this and there is a way to give yourself the Heimlich using the back of the chair. She showed me but also recommended going on YouTube and watching a bunch of "What do do when choking alone' videos that show it

for example