New CPR Guidelines

Two of the three pillars of CPR — opening a distressed person’s airway and providing mouth-to-mouth breathing — turn out to be not so essential when it comes to saving the life of someone in cardiac arrest. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation should begin with forceful chest compressions to keep the blood circulating through the body, according to new guidelines released today by the American Heart Association. And people who haven’t been trained in CPR need not bother with providing air-passage clearance and mouth-to-mouth breathing at all, the group said.