My floors were absent of any item that my first son could choke on when he was a little guy. All of his toy cars had huge non-swallow-able wheels. His blocks were the mega-kind not the much smaller Legos of my childhood. By the time our second son was born the tires on the toy cars were matchbox sized and my son had added old-school Lincoln Logs to his building materials—choking hazards galore.
I bet this scenario is replayed in thousands of households with more than one child. The older child’s toys spread around the house while the younger children crawl and toddle over the collection.
It’s fairly simple to check if your older child’s toys are indeed a choking threat. The easiest is to grab a toilet paper roll. If the toy fits into the hole of the cardboard roll, it can block your child’s airway. Or you can get more exact with a “Choke Tube Tester.” The measurement for a choking hazard is any toy with a diameter of 1.25 inches and a slanted bottom with a depth ranging from 1 to 2.25 inches.
An item that won’t make itself evident in the toilet paper roll is a balloon. They’re fine when inflated; but, dangerous when popped. The flexibility of the latex can easily block a child’s airway if popped and accidentally swallowed. The Consumer Products Safety Commission states that ”more choking deaths occur from balloons than from any other children’s product.”
The American Red Cross offers classes to help parents learn life-saving techniques including what to do in the event of a blocked airway. One immediate step you can take is to swipe the mouth gently to see if the object is something that can easily be removed with fingers. Just be careful to not push the object further into the airway. The Heimlich maneuver can be used to help thrust an item out. There are different maneuvers depending on the child’s age which is something the Red Cross goes over in detail.
by Lena Cox, aka MomOfSuperheroes
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