What To Do When Your Child Is Choking (And How To Prevent It)

What To Do When Your Child Is Choking : It’s a frightening moment for any parent. You turn around to look at your child–you only looked away for a few seconds–and they’re gasping for air. Most of the time, choking on a piece of food is no big deal; we’ve all had a mouthful ‘go down the wrong way’ and managed to cough it up. But when the situation doesn’t resolve itself, choking can be fatal.

Of course, you can and should call emergency services, but you can’t just sit around and wait–if the brain doesn’t get oxygen for four minutes or longer, the result can be brain damage or death. Read on to find out the signs of choking, what you should do if your child is choking, and some ways to prevent choking from happening in the first place.

Symptoms of choking

First of all, how do you know your child is choking? Some of the most common signs of choking include:

  • The person clutching their throat
  • Making coughing, wheezing or gagging sounds
  • Being unable to make any sound
  • Being unable to swallow, talk or breathe
  • Making crowing noises
  • Absence of air coming out of the nose and mouth
  • The lips, face, fingernails or earlobes turning blue
  • Agitation
  • Loss of consciousness

First aid treatment for a choking child

So your child is choking–what now? Here are the steps to follow. First, if the child turns blue, goes limp or loses consciousness at any time, call emergency services in your area for an ambulance (911 in the USA).

For a child over one year old:

  1. If the child can cough, encourage them to keep it up. This alone may dislodge the object.
  2. If coughing is ineffective, call emergency services to request an ambulance.
  3. Perform up to five sharp blows to the middle of the upper back between the shoulder blades with the heel of your hand. Check after each blow to see if the blockage has been dislodged. If it has, you can stop.
  4. If you finish the five blows and the blockage is still in the child’s airway, it’s time to perform up to five chest thrusts. First, put one hand in the middle of the child’s back for support. With the heel of your other hand, find the lower half of the breastbone (where chest compressions are performed in CPR) and thrust hard into the chest there with a quick upward motion. As with the five blows to the back, check after each thrust to determine whether the airway is cleared. If it has, you can stop.
  5. After five chest thrusts, try another five sharp blows to the back, and continue alternating between these manoeuvres until the obstruction is cleared or until the ambulance arrives.
  6. If the child goes limp, turns blue or loses consciousness, start performing CPR straight away.

For a baby under one year old, the process is similar, with a few adjustments because of their smaller body:

  1. Position the baby face down on your forearm, angling their head so that it’s lower than their body and using your hand to support their head and shoulders.
  2. While still supporting the baby’s head, use your fingers to hold their mouth open.
  3. With the heel of your free hand, perform five sharp blows to the upper back between the baby’s shoulders. Check in between blows to see whether the blockage has cleared. If it has, you don’t need to continue with all five thrusts.
  4. If you can now see the blockage in the baby’s mouth, you can carefully remove it with your little finger. Take care not to inadvertently push it back in.
  5. If the blockage still hasn’t come out after five blows to the back, start performing chest thrusts. Lay the baby face up on a firm surface. Put two fingers on the bottom half of their breastbone and perform five slow but sharp chest thrusts–again, checking each time to see if the blockage is gone. If it has, you can stop the thrusts.
  6. As with older children, if the obstruction hasn’t come out after the five back blows and five chest thrusts, continue with the sequence until the blockage is removed or until the ambulance arrives.
  7. Begin CPR if the baby loses consciousness.

How to prevent choking

Of course, it’s impossible to eliminate all risks, but taking a few precautions around the home can greatly reduce the chances of your child choking.

Here are some simple ways to help prevent your child from choking on food:

  • Be careful of hard foods. Cook, mash or grate them or don’t give them to small children at all.
  • Cut meat into small pieces.
  • If you give your child sausages, take the skins off first.
  • Watch your child while they’re eating.
  • Make food narrower by cutting it lengthwise.
  • If you can, get your child to sit down and be quiet while eating.
  • Keep peanuts away from small children–they’re a well-known choking hazard.
  • Don’t try to feed your child while they’re laughing or crying.

Here are some choking hazards to avoid around the house:

  • Keep any item smaller than a ping pong ball out of your child’s reach.
  • Be aware that the polystyrene balls that fill beanbags and some toys are a choking hazard, and check these objects regularly to ensure they aren’t falling apart.
  • Pay attention to the warning labels on toys regarding age.
  • Watch small children around balloons–they can be a choking hazard if they burst.

The Good News

Thanks to greater manufacturing regulations around products made for small children and increased efforts to educate parents in the last few decades, far fewer children are choking to death. A 2019 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that since 1968, child choking deaths have decreased by an incredible 75% in the US. This shows that preventing choking is, to some extent, within our control. We also have some power to treat choking in children when it does occur. Knowing the basic steps to follow when a child is choking is a great first step. Following up with first aid training to address this and other child health emergencies would be even better.

 

 

 

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