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Michele Domico presents a talk on the pitfalls of common paediatric resuscitative manoeuvres in paediatric cardiac patients. Emergency and critical care physicians are all well accustomed to items such as oxygen, bolus adrenaline, intubation and cardioversion. However, as Michele explains, these ‘go to’ interventions may in fact be harmful for the paediatric cardiac patient presenting to the emergency department in extremis. Due to the physiology of certain complex congenital heart diseases, the usual resuscitation manoeuvres may in fact kill the patient instead of helping. Supplemental oxygen can worsen the pulmonary to systemic blood flow ratio in single ventricle patients and cause them to have rising lactate levels and cardiac arrest from low systemic cardiac output. Intubation and positive pressure ventilation may impede pulmonary blood flow in patients with a Glenn shunt and the patient can become more desaturated. With increasing PEEP and higher respiratory rates, the patients will continue to deterior