Final answer:
The minimum rate of chest compressions for infant CPR is 100 per minute, adhering to guidelines that prioritize high-quality chest compressions to ensure blood circulation, particularly to the brain.
Step-by-step explanation:
When performing CPR on an infant, the minimum rate of chest compressions is at least 100 per minute. This rate is consistent with the current standards for CPR, which emphasize the importance of high-quality chest compressions over artificial respiration. For infants, it is vital to achieve a balance between providing effective chest compressions and being gentle enough to avoid injury to their more delicate structures, hence the recommendation of at least 100 compressions per minute. It's noteworthy that this compression rate matches the tempo of the song "Staying Alive" by the Bee Gees, which can be used as a guideline to maintain the appropriate rate during CPR. The goal of CPR is to manually compress the blood within the heart to push it into the pulmonary and systemic circuits, especially to the brain, where lack of blood flow can quickly lead to irreversible damage and death of neurons.