Choking can be viewed as a terrifying incident. What makes it terrifying is the fact that it can happen to anyone at any given time. Babies under 12 months, young children and grade-schoolers, adults, and even older people can all fall prey to this alarming accident.
A normal day can quickly turn into a nightmare when a seemingly innocent daily activity like your child eating or playing starts an incident of choking. And suddenly, you, as a parent, are out of sorts.
What can you do when your child starts choking out of nowhere?
As a parent you must act like an emergency responder when your child is choking. You must understand that every minute counts in securing their safety, and at that moment, you are the only person your child can count on.
Learning how to perform first-aid treatment to your choking child is also crucial in their safety. Master how to do first aid for children with our first aid course for children
It is also important to know when to call emergency services when you find out your child is choking. Better yet, book a private ambulance service so that you can comfortably bring your child to the hospital.
What is Choking?
Choking is the result of a foreign object, usually a large chunk of food or a toy, blocking the airway and leading to oxygen deprivation and loss.
It may seem like a harmless incident to happen, but choking can cut off oxygen circulation to the brain and can result in permanent brain damage.
Choking is fatal and has been ranked as one of the leading causes of deaths among unintentional injuries in the US. Children are especially at high risk of choking. In Singapore, at least 550 cases of choking among children have been listed annually.
If you have kids at home, it would be best to learn proper techniques on how to handle choking so that you can provide immediate aid to them and save their life.
How to administer aid to a choking child
The first thing you need to do when you suspect that your child is choking is to not panic. Panicking can only worsen any situation. Do not let your child see that you are starting to get scared or helpless. You need to be calm and assure them that things will go well. If you are calm, your composure will mirror them, and they too, won’t start to get scared of what’s happening.
Next, you need to verify that they are indeed choking. Talk to your child. Ask them if they are choking. If they can talk and are coughing forcefully, then they are not choking.
However, if your child starts gagging and can only communicate by making high-pitched sounds, then they are choking.
Choking Treatment for Children Age 1 to 8 Years Old
Call emergency services. Since choking can be deadly, medical attention must be provided to your child right away. While help is on the way, try out these steps on your own as you cannot waste any minute for your child’s survival.
Administering choking aid is different for adults and children. For children from 1 to 8 years old, you must perform abdominal thrusts in this manner:
- Stand or kneel behind the child and wrap your arms around their waist.
- Make a fist in one hand with the thumb tucked in.
- Put your fist in the area below the chest and above the navel. This would be the abdomen and the target of your thrusts.
- Tightly hold the fisted hand with your free hand.
- Press into the abdomen quickly in an upward thrust. This should force the food or item out of your child’s mouth.
- Continue to perform the thrusts until the food or the item comes out. Your abdominal thrusts should be characterized by two things: upward and inward.
- If the object has been expelled, don’t forget to bring your child to the hospital and have a doctor take a look at them. This is to rule out the possibility of the food fragments and other pieces still being suspended in the lung.
- If your child loses consciousness while you perform abdominal thrusts to them, quickly inform the operator you’re talking to from emergency services.
Signs of Choking
Choking can be classified in terms of how severe the airway obstruction or blockage is. The symptoms can determine the severity of the blockage.
Partial Airway Blockage
Mild obstruction or partial airway blockage happens when your kid is coughing loudly, breathing, crying, and responds to you however little. While considered mild, it is not a matter that should be taken lightly. Any incident of choking should be acted on with immediate care. Within seconds, partial airway obstruction can be deadly once your child loses access to oxygen.
Complete Airway Blockage
Severe obstruction or complete airway blockage occurs when your kid is silent, is trying to cough but with no sound, cannot breathe, and cannot even respond to your questions even with the slightest sound. If their skin is starting to turn blue, your child’s oxygen levels are super low. At this point, you must act quickly with precision.
It only takes as little as 4 minutes for permanent brain damage to happen due to oxygen deprivation, which means you have less than 4 minutes to act. Make sure that you are thinking rationally and working fast enough.
Mild and severe airway blockages should be both taken care of immediately, as both are considered life-threatening.
