(Boston, MA) -- Mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing may do more harm than good when performed on someone whose just suddenly collapsed. That's the bottom line from a pair of studies published Wednesday in the "New England Journal of Medicine." It use to be that people were taught to give two breaths for every 15 chest compressions when performing CPR. That all changed five years ago, when researchers said two breaths for every 30 compressions was adequate. Now, they appear to be saying no breaths, just stick to the chest compressions, with the theory being that it's better to continue pumping a victim's heart, rather than stopping intermittently to give mouth-to-mouth, which could actually lower their chances of survival. The findings, however, do not apply to children under the age of eight.
