Key Points
Squeeze the balloon slowly, following your own breathing rhythm. Take one breath, then squeeze the balloon once. Squeezing and releasing the balloon too quickly will cause ineffective breathing and will not help the patient’s oxygen saturation rise.
Case
During patient transport, the oxygen saturation gradually dropped to 90. Subconsciously thinking the squeezing was too slow, the rate was increased, but the oxygen saturation continued to fall to 85. After the nurse saw this, she had someone else take over and slow down the squeezing frequency. The oxygen saturation then slowly recovered to 95.