Dr Kerryn Phelps, Health Editor, Channel Nine, 'Today'

PHELPS: Good morning, Tracy.

GRIMSHAW: This is extraordinary information. Just a slight tap on the chest can cause cardiac arrest.

PHELPS: Well, it is concerning. We have known for quite a long time that a very heavy blow to the chest, for example from a flying cricket ball, could actually stop a child's heart. But this new research from the United States, where they've actually been looking at these cardiac arrests in children, have found that there have been over 50 deaths in the last 12 months from seemingly innocuous blows to the chest. Things like being punched in the chest, or a soft hollow bat hitting a child on the chest during play, playing with the family dog, these sorts of things. So that really has caused a great deal of concern, and this was a paper presented to the American Heart Association, just this week.

GRIMSHAW: Do we know, I mean, obviously these are new findings. But do we know whether the kids who are most at risk have cardiac history in the family or something like that?

PHELPS: Apparently normal, although the children who appear to be at greatest risk are the ones with a narrow chest or who have under-developed chest muscles. So the slight children perhaps who don't have as much protection around their chest wall for their heart. But I think that it's one of those areas that's going to need quite a lot more research. Clearly the numbers are not high. There have been about 124 deaths in the last 12 months, adults and children, from blows to the chest where the heart was stopped. Now, interestingly, only 18 of those were saved, and that was because someone in the vicinity knew how to do effective CPR or resuscitation. And I guess the message really, here for parents, is be careful in play with children, but if something like this does happen know what to do in case of an emergency, and do a first aid course which includes CPR.

GRIMSHAW: It's getting harder and harder to be a parent these days. There are other rules now with handling children. I mean not just the tap on the chest, although that's the new big one.

PHELPS: I think parents always try to protect their children as much as they possibly can. But there are inadvertent injuries that children can get when parents are just being perhaps a little boisterous or perhaps not thinking. And, for example, in two and three year olds there's a particular injury where they can dislocate this bone in the elbow just by pulling a child up if they're having a tantrum, as children often do, and you try and drag that child up. Or if you're holding their hand and they pull against you, they can actually dislocate that arm and they'll have a very floppy useless arm and be crying and, you don't know what's wrong with them and that's, quite often, what it is. The other thing not to do is to yank children up by their arms because that can hurt their shoulders. So as much as possible, lifting them around the chest.

GRIMSHAW: But if we can come back to that list again, because some of the things on that list, I must say, I've done a couple of them with my Godson in play. Do not throw children up in the air. Obviously the rule there is make sure you catch the child. It's not the throwing up.

PHELPS: That's it, yes. There have been a number of fall injuries from parents who have thrown the children up in the air and then slipped and not been able to catch them and they've fallen to the ground. So that's another thing. But the really big danger, and this is particularly with fussy babies, and that's shaking a child.

GRIMSHAW: Yeah.

PHELPS: And the big rule is never ever shake your child. Number one, it won't stop them crying. And number two, it puts them at serious risk of brain haemorrhage, brain damage and blindness. And it's a very serious injury and one that any babysitter, anyone dealing with babies needs to know that there are many other ways of soothing a baby. Shaking them won't do the trick.

GRIMSHAW: Okay. The new breast cancer website, let's talk about that.

PHELPS: The breast cancer website has been set up by Dr Paul Creagh, and he is a breast surgeon at the St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney. Now, I think a lot of women who have breast cancer will be looking for information that is reliable. This is one website that would be worth looking at, www.breasthealthlink.com and I think it's well worth having a look at websites that are checked and monitored by experts. And if women have breast cancer they need to have information, and this is a website that was launched yesterday.

GRIMSHAW: And this answers questions that you can't readily find answers to?

PHELPS: Yes, it does. And I think it's very important that women who are faced with a situation like this, and families of women who are faced with a situation where there is breast cancer, need to have as much information as possible which is from a reliable source.

GRIMSHAW: Okay. Thanks, Kerryn.

PHELPS: Thanks, Tracy.

Ends