Original Author: Karen Serrano, MD
University of Wisconsin Dept. of Emergency Medicine
Submitted by: Saadiyah Bilal, Publications Committee, Co-Chair
Managing the pediatric airway poses unique challenges for the emergency physician, requiring a good understanding of pediatric anatomy and familiarity with child-specific tools and approaches for emergency airway.
Children are more susceptible to airway obstruction than adults. One millimeter of edema in a small caliber pediatric airway (4mm diameter in a neonate) leads to dramatically increased airway resistance compared to the same amount of swelling in an adult (d=8mm) due to the effect of radius to the 4th power on rate of flow. The relatively large tongue of children can also collapse against the posterior pharynx, resulting in airway obstruction. Maneuvers such as the chin-lift or
