SANFORD — When her 2-month-old baby boy stopped breathing, a young mother said she drew on what she’d learned back at her New Hampshire junior high school to perform cardio pulmonary resuscitation.

Apparently fully recovered, baby Kayden Reynolds smiled, drank from a baby bottle and snuggled close to his mother, Christina Reynolds, earlier this week.

Now, Reynolds says she is on a mission to promote CPR and other basic emergency procedures so other parents will have skills at the ready should they ever need them.

Reynolds said her son stopped breathing on Sept. 5. He was in the living room in a baby swing while she was unpacking in the bedroom ”“ the family had just recently moved into their new apartment. She said she went to check on her son and saw that his lips were white and pale and he had purple patches on his skin.

“I pulled him out of the swing,” she said. “He wasn’t breathing. I started doing CPR.”

Reynolds said she had learned CPR as part of a health class back in seventh grade in Antrim, N.H. She said her baby started breathing again and she called 911.

Reynolds said she was calm as she was performing CPR but the enormity of the situation surfaced when emergency personnel arrived at her home.

“In my mind, I was saying, ”˜okay, this is what needs to be done,’” she said. “As soon as rescue arrived, I broke down and cried.”

Now, she said, she has a hard time leaving Kayden, even when her husband watches him while she attends her medical assisting classes.

Nurse Donna Cady, cardiopulmonary manager at Goodall Hospital, said performing CPR, especially on an infant, can be nerve-wracking, even for a seasoned healthcare provider. She said the best thing for a parent to do is carry the baby to the phone and “call for help and get right to it.” 

Reynolds said Kayden was taken to Goodall Hospital and later transferred to Maine Medical Center for observation, where he underwent a battery of tests.

“They said I have a perfectly healthy baby boy,” said Reynolds. But she said that doesn’t explain why he stopped breathing and that her primary care physician is in the process of securing an infant sleep apnea monitor for Kayden.

According to Reynolds, physicians called what happened by Kayden an “apparent life threatening event” with no known underlying cause.

An article published online by the American Academy of Family Physicians, said ALTE predominantly affects children under 1 year old.

“This syndrome is characterized by a frightening constellation of symptoms in which the child exhibits some combination of apnea, change in color, change in muscle tone, coughing, or gagging,”  physicians Karen L. Hall and Barry Zalman wrote in the 2005 article. “The episodes may necessitate stimulation or resuscitation to arouse the child and reinitiate regular breathing,” the doctors wrote.

The reported incidence of ALTE is .05 to 6 percent, with peak incidences occurring between 1 week and 2 months of age, with most events occurring in infants younger than 10 weeks, according to the AAFP.

Since Kayden’s experience, Reynolds said she’s been doing a lot of research on what happened to her son, and making calls to area medical facilities to inquire about the availability of CPR. 

One local resource for CPR is Goodall Hospital, which is designated as a training center by the American Heart Association, said Cady. The hospital both provides CPR classes and provides administrative support for others who conduct classes.  Folks can call the hospital to sign up for a course, she said..

Sanford School Department curriculum director Janice Goldsberry said CPR is taught in health class at the sophomore level to students at Sanford High School, and students can become certified, if they wish.

Reynolds said she’s looking for a program available to low income parents.

“I want to see this happen,” said Reynolds from the apartment she shares with her husband and young son. “And if somebody does it already, I’ll help get the word out.”

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 or twells@journaltribune.com.