Insight

The primary purpose of putting your patient in the sniffing position is to facilitate intubation by reducing the approach angle to the trachea. It can be achieved by putting your patient’s head on an object such as a pillow, folded towels/sheets/blankets, foam headrest, or anything else that will raise the head with the base of the neck flexed and the atlanto-occipital joint extended. The ideal sniffing position puts the ear and sternal notch of the patient in the same horizontal plane.

-Brendan Tarantino

Dive Deeper

Now that you understand this term, you can check out the link below to see it in the clinical context of one of our PAC learning spaces to better understand its meaning.

Reference

Positioning The Head For Intubation Christine Whitten, MD

Intubation Positioning: Beyond Sniffing Katie Colton, MD, Charles Caffrey, MD, Andrew Pirotte, MD