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LHS Home > Family Health > Vital Signs
Discovering Vital Signs
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Both breathing and heartbeat
are important signs of life. Our heart and lungs work together to keep us alive and
healthy. You can see or feel breathing movements of the abdomen or chest. Exhaled
air can be felt. You can feel or hear a heart beating. Your children will enjoy finding
out about the heart, blood vessels, and lungs while they work with you to investigate
their own vital signs.
Teach Your Children To
- Locate and check breathing and pulse
- Count their own pulse
- Identify the heart, lungs, and blood vessels
- Use new words such as exhale, inhale,
heart, lungs, oxygen, pulse, artery, vein
You Will Need
- Watch or clock with a second hand
- A Body Poster
- Washable, ink felt pen
- Masking tape
- A 16 oz. paper cup with the bottom removed
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Activity 1 Checking for Breathing
1. Show your children how to feel for breathing at the nose. Explain that placing
the back of one hand just in front of a person's nose is another way to check for
breathing. Demonstrate the method on yourself (with your mouth closed), then have
them try it on themselves. Encourage them to describe their observations.
2. Invite your children to check their own breathing. Explain that they will sit
quietly with their eyes closed, and a hand over their ñbelly button,î so they can
feel the way their abdomen moves during breathing. When they are ready, give them
a signal to begin. After about 30 seconds, ask them to describe what they felt. Ask
them what might cause the abdomen to move in and out during breathing. |
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| 3. Show them the Body Poster,
and together locate the lungs on the diagram. Explain that when a person breathes
in (inhales), the air goes to the lungs and the lungs get bigger. When the person
breathes out (exhales), the lungs get smaller. The muscles of the chest and abdomen
move when we breathe. Tell the children that when we inhale air we bring oxygen gas
to our lungs. Oxygen is necessary for life. |
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Activity 2 Listening for Heartbeats
1. Look at the Body Poster with your children, and point to the heart. Show them
where to feel their own heartbeats by placing a hand over your own heart on the left
side of your chest. Have them try to feel their own hearts beating. The heartbeat
is easier to feel if they are wearing only one layer of clothing.
2. Direct your children to find the spot where they can feel their own heart beating.
Then, place a piece of masking tape on that location so they can find the spot again.
3. Hold up the cup (with the bottom removed) and tell children it magnifies the sound
of the heartbeat.
4. Demonstrate how to use the cup by pressing it against a child's chest and inviting
another child to listen to the sounds. One child will be the ñPatientî and will sit
quietly as the ñListenerî locates the heartbeat sounds. Point out that it is important
to hold the cup steady so that no movement of clothing or the cup can be heard.
5. Give the ñListenerî time to position the cup over the heartbeat sticker, and give
a ñGoî signal for listening. When about 30 seconds have passed, give a ñStopî signal
and have the children switch roles.
6. Ask the children to describe what the heartbeats sound like. |
lub-DUB. . .
Two sounds, described as ñlub-DUB,î can be heard during every heartbeat. These
are the sounds of the heart valves as they click shut. It sounds like: lub-DUB, pause
lub-DUBƒ |
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Activity 3 Exploring Pulse
1. Explore pulse and
blood vessels with your children. Ask, ñWhat happens when you cut your finger or
skin your knee?î [You bleed or see blood.] Point out the heart and main blood vessels
on the Body
Poster. Explain that
each beat of the heart pushes blood to all parts of the body in tubes called arteries.
Near the heart the arteries are big; they become smaller as they branch out
to the arms and legs.
2. Invite children to look for blood vessels on the backs of their hands, and to
describe what they see. Explain that these thin blue lines are veins that carry blood
back to the heart. The Body
Poster shows how the
small arteries become very tiny tubes, called capillaries, that connect to
veins enabling blood to flow back to the heart.
3. Introduce the term pulse and explain that it is a little wave or surge
in the blood that is pushed through the arteries by a heartbeat. Ask your children
where they might feel their own pulse. [Neck, wrist, temple, ankle.]
4. Demonstrate how to find the pulse at the wrist. Show your hand palm side up. Follow
your thumb toward your arm and apply gentle pressure to the pulse point area around
the wrist. If you don't feel a pulse, move your fingers gently around until you do.
5. Use a washable marker to make a dot on your wrist where you feel a pulse. Invite
your child to feel your pulse. Then help her find a pulse on her own wrist, and have
her mark the spot with a dot.
6. Practice finding each other's pulse at the wrist and on the neck below the ear
lobe. |
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Activity 4 Counting Pulse
For Children 9 Years
and Older
Teach your children how to
measure heartbeat rate. This is the number of times a heart beats in one minute (60
seconds). Have your children practice counting pulses while you keep time. Compare
the heartbeat rates before and after exercise.
1. At first, children have difficulty counting pulses for more than a few seconds.
Have them practice counting for different lengths of time, such as for 10, 15, and
20 seconds. Take the role of time keeper, and give them a signal, such as, ñready,
get set, go.î
2. Have them try counting at the wrist and at the neck to find the place that is
easiest for them. Try out several different counting periods, and compute heartbeat
rate for each one. Work with the children to compare the results:
- Count for 6 seconds, then multiply by
10.
- Count for 15 seconds, then multiply by
4.
- Count for 20 seconds, then multiply by
3.
- Count for 30 seconds, then multiply by
2.
3. Encourage your children to use their
math skills to compute their average resting heartbeat rate. Have them conduct 3
counts and record their results each time. Have them add the 3 counts together and
then divide the sum by 3 to find the average.
4. Challenge your children
to measure their heartbeat rates after different kinds of exercise. Have them compare
these rates to heartbeat rates when they are sitting and lying down. Ask, ñWhat happens
to the heartbeat rate after exercise? After changing body position?î
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| Sample: 30-second counts |
| Count 1 |
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36 |
| Count 2 |
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34 |
| Count 3 |
+ |
32 |
| Add |
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102 |
| Divide 102 / 3 = 34 heartbeats/30
sec. |
| Multiply 2 X 34 = 68 heartbeats/60
sec. |
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| Note: The heart
beats faster with exercise to get more oxygen to muscles in motion. The heart beats
slower when we lie down because muscles are less active. |
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Body Poster
Your lungs inhale air rich in oxygen (O2) and exhale air full of carbon dioxide waste
(CO2).
Your heart pumps blood rich in O2 to all parts of your body through the arteries.
Capillaries are tiny tubes that connect the arteries and veins.
Veins return blood to the heart.
Then the heart pumps this blood (full of CO2) back to the lungs where the CO2 is
exhaled.
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Background Information for Parents
Our lungs and heart work together to
keep us alive and healthy. When you take a breath, oxygen gas is brought into
the lungs. Then it moves into the blood and is carried to the heart in blood vessels.
The heart pumps the oxygen rich blood through arteries to the body. Veins carry oxygen
poor blood back to the heart which pumps it to the lungs. Carbon dioxide, a waste
gas of the body, is transferred from the blood to the lungs and exhaled through the
nose and mouth.
The heart is the body's vital pump. Each heartbeat pushes blood through miles
of elastic arteries, making them stretch. Between beats they shrink until the next
beat stretches them again, causing a wave along the arteries. These pulses
can be felt in the areas where the arteries are close to the skin, such as at the
wrist and neck.
An 8-10 year old child's resting pulse rate is usually about 90 beats per minute,
though normal rates vary from 60 to 110 beats per minute. Within any group there
will always be a variation in the pulse rates observed. Resting pulse rates much
above 120 beats/minute or much below 50 beats/minute are uncommon and should be checked
by a doctor. Measuring your resting pulse rate is a useful health indicator. Fever,
for example, is usually accompanied by a rise in the resting pulse rate.
A child's heart is a muscle about the size of a small fist. The heart is the
body's strongest muscle, working around the clock for a lifetime. It does not get
tired because it rests briefly after each beat.
Many variables can influence a person's heart rate: age, physical activity,
and health status, to mention a few. In children, the most frequent causes of rapid
heart rate other than exercise are anxiety and fever.
It takes less than a minute to check someone's vital signs (breathing and
heartbeat). A phone call can bring emergency aid in a matter of minutes. The key
is knowing what to do and how to act quickly. When you dial 911, your location and
phone number are automatically displayed on a viewing screen at an emergency agency
so you can be quickly located. The first few pages of your phone book list other
emergency phone numbers, as well as safety and first aid information.
Books for Children
Why Don't Haircuts Hurt? Questions and Answers About the Human Body by Melvin
and Gilda Berger, Scholastic Question and Answer Series, Scholastic Inc., 1998. ISBN
0-439-08569-1
Me and My Body, by David Evans and Claudette Williams, Dorling Kindersley,
Inc., New York NY, 1992. ISBN 1-56458-121-7
Hear Your Heart by Paul Showers, Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science Series, HarperCollins,
2001. ISBN 0-06-445139-9
Web Site
http://www.americanheart.org /Health/Lifestyle/Youth
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