Parents may be doing more harm than good when their children pass out by performing "dangerous" manoeuvres, researchers say.
While it is common for children to lose consciousness, parents do not always use the recovery position, which helps keep the airway open, they said.
The study of 533 parents from 11 children's emergency care departments across Europe was published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
The children ranged from babies up to the age of 18 and had either passed out within the previous 24 hours or were unconscious when arriving at the A&E department.
In 145 cases, parents put their child in the recovery position (26 per cent of the total).
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
But in 53 per cent of cases, other manoeuvres were used - with 17 per cent of these regarded as "dangerous".
Children were shaken in 91 cases (17 per cent), including babies under one - for whom shaking can cause severe brain injuries.
Among the children, loss of consciousness was most commonly caused by seizures linked to a high temperature, followed by seizures for other reasons.
One in five children had an underlying condition, the most common of which was epilepsy (7 per cent).
The length of time the child was unconscious ranged from two to 20 minutes.
Evidence suggests that around 15 per cent of children will have lost consciousness before they reach the end of their teenage years.
Putting the child in the recovery position was associated with a 28 per cent overall lower risk of hospital admission, the study found.
For children under the age of two, this risk was 10 times lower.
But manoeuvres deemed to be potentially dangerous were linked with a more than doubling in the risk of requiring hospital admission.
The study was led by Dr Luigi Titomanlio, from the Robert Debre Hospital in Paris.
Alan Weir, head of clinical services at St John Ambulance, said: "All people should learn the recovery position - it's very simple and can be the difference between life and death in an emergency."
How to put someone in the recovery position
- kneel next to the unconscious person
- place their arm nearest you at a right angle to their body, with their palm facing upwards
- take their other arm and place it across their chest so the back of their hand is against their cheek nearest you, and hold it there
- with your other hand, lift their far knee and pull it up until their foot is flat on the floor
- carefully pull on their bent knee and roll them towards you
- check that their airway is open, so they can breathe and any fluid from their mouth can drain away - to do this tilt their head back, gently tilt their chin forward and make sure their airway will stay open and clear
- for a child under the age of one, cradle the baby in your arms with their head tilted downwards
- holding them in this position will keep their airway open and stop them choking on their tongue or breathing in any vomit.
Source: Alan Weir, St John Ambulance UK
