Asphyxia Health Dictionary

The medical term for suffocation.

Asphyxia may be caused by the obstruction of a large airway, usually by a foreign body (see choking), by insufficient oxygen in the surrounding air (as occurs when a closed plastic bag is put over the head), or by poisoning with a gas such as carbon monoxide that interferes with the uptake of oxygen into the blood.

First-aid treatment is by artificial respiration after clearing the airway of obstruction.

Untreated asphyxia leads to death within a few minutes.

Inability to breath

Asphyxia means literally absence of pulse, but is the name given to the whole series of symptoms which follow stoppage of breathing and of the heart’s action. Drowning is one cause, but obstruction of the AIR PASSAGES may occur as the result of a foreign body or in some diseases, such as CROUP, DIPHTHERIA, swelling of the throat due to wounds or in?ammation, ASTHMA (to a partial extent), tumours in the chest (causing slow asphyxia), and the external conditions of su?ocation and strangling. Placing the head in a plastic bag results in asphyxia, and poisonous gases also cause asphyxia: for example, CARBON MONOXIDE (CO) gas, which may be given o? by a stove or charcoal brazier in a badly ventilated room, can kill people during sleep. Several gases, such as sulphurous acid (from burning sulphur), ammonia, and chlorine (from bleaching-powder), cause involuntary closure of the entrance to the larynx, and thus prevent breathing. Other gases, such as nitrous oxide (or laughing-gas), chloroform, and ether, in poisonous quantity, stop the breathing by paralysing the respiration centre in the brain.

Symptoms In most cases, death from asphyxia is due to insu?ciency of oxygen supplied to the blood. The ?rst signs are rapid pulse and gasping for breath. Next comes a rise in the blood pressure, causing throbbing in the head, with lividity or blueness of the skin, due to failure of aeration of the blood, followed by still greater struggles for breath and by general CONVULSIONS. The heart becomes overdistended and gradually weaker, a paralytic stage sets in, and all struggling and breathing slowly cease. When asphyxia is due to charcoal fumes, coal-gas, and other narcotic in?uences, there is no convulsive stage, and death ensues gently and may occur in the course of sleep.

Treatment So long as the heart continues to beat, recovery may be looked for with prompt treatment. The one essential of treatment is to get the impure blood aerated by arti?cial respiration. Besides this, the feeble circulation can be helped by various methods. (See APPENDIX 1: BASIC FIRST AID – Choking; Cardiac/respiratory arrest.)

n. suffocation: a life-threatening condition in which oxygen is prevented from reaching the tissues by obstruction of or damage to any part of the respiratory system. Drowning, choking, and breathing poisonous gas all lead to asphyxia. Unless the condition is remedied by removing the obstruction (when present) and by artificial respiration if necessary, there is progressive *cyanosis leading to death. Brain cells cannot live for more than about four minutes without oxygen.