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Choking Concerns for Small Children

3 Steps Parents Can Take to Avoid Disaster

By Jennifer Lacey

Watching your toddlers grow and explore the world around them is a wonderful time in the life of families. Walking, talking and most especially adding and eating new foods are just part of the newfound experiences that every little one will have.

But parents should be vigilant and always be on the lookout for potential choking hazards at all times, especially during this period.

When food or small objects get caught in a child's throat or block her airway, preventing oxygen from traveling to the lungs and the brain, choking will occur. Unfortunately, after more than four minutes without oxygen, the result can be brain damage or even death.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) explains that most children who choke to death in the United States each year are younger than 5 years of age. Two-thirds of these choking victims are infants younger than 1 year.

Dr. Jonathan I. Groner, the trauma medical director at the Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and associate professor of surgery at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health, explains that most infants and toddlers explore their world around them in a way that comes naturally to them – with their mouths.

"This exploration is a part of the normal neurosensory development of children," Dr. Groner says. "With this particular age group, it is part of ordinary curiosity to put almost any object into their mouths. I once retrieved a carpet tack from a young toddler. Her home was undergoing renovations, and the child found the tack while playing."

Dr. Peggy E. Kelley, director of the voice clinic and co-director of the Vascular Malformation Clinic at The Children's Hospital in Denver, Colo., and associate professor of otolaryngology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, agrees, adding that during this period of time almost anything in your child's reach will end up in his mouth. If any of these items should lodge toward the back of his mouth, the swallow reflex may propel the foreign body into the throat, she says. "If it is too large to fit down the esophagus it will get stuck and can block the airway."

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