Common Food that Children choke on

Babyment

Common Food that Children choke on.

A study conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics revealed that one child dies every five days from choking on food hazards. Thus, it’s the parents’ responsibility to ensure that their children do not suffer a similar fate as at their young and tender age, infants, toddlers and preschoolers do not consider the potential hazards of the food they are consuming as long as they taste good.

1. Hotdogs

What makes hot dogs so dangerous are the fact that they are of the right measurements to obstruct your children’s airway. Thus, when it is lodged in your child’s throat, it completely obstructs air from passing through it. This causes your child to choke as he is unable to breathe. Studies have consistently proven that Hotdogs are often amongst the top, if not the most hazardous type of food that causes choking-related deaths or injuries.

2. Hard Candy

All manner or types of hard candy can be stuck in children’s windpipes if they failed to bite or chew the candy into smaller pieces before swallowing. What exacerbates the situation is that because these candies appeal greatly to children’s taste buds, they often attempt to eat them in larger serving sizes than recommended. Although your children may constantly request or even demand for hard candies, do refrain from giving them hard candies, or if you have to- try to give them smaller sized hard candies and not your Gobstoppers. Moreover, candies contain a significant quantity of sugar and are partially responsible for high obesity rates among children. Parents can kill two birds with one stone by restricting the quantity of candies consumed by children. Alternatives to satisfy your children’s sweet tooth includes chocolates, fruits and juices.

3. Popcorn

Its movie night! Although it may seem a great idea to introduce popcorn to your children as its healthier than other generic snacks such as potato chips, cookies and sugar biscuits et cetera. However, for toddlers and infants, popcorn is extremely dangerous as the inconsistent shapes and surfaces of the popcorn can easily get lodged in their throats and windpipes when your child swallows them without adequate chewing. Even worse, the kernels of popcorn are not meant to be swallowed but discarded. However, children who do not know this fact will most certainly swallow them whole as a reflex when consuming popcorn. If you have to let your child consume popcorn, ensure that they are under adult supervision and that the adults are ready to assist when necessary.

4. Tough meat such as well-done steak or overcooked chicken/pork

Infants, toddlers and preschoolers may lack the ability and tenacity to chew on tough slabs of meat. Instead, they may prefer to swallow entire chunks whole to reduce discomfort. As such its best to serve children softer cuts of meat that are braised, stewed, slow-roasted, shredded et cetera. Cutting them into very small pieces or mincing are also possible options.

5. Hard/Crunchy Vegetables such as uncooked broccoli and carrots as well as Raw Fruits such as Apples.

Raw broccoli and carrots are rather difficult to chew properly for kids. Chewing, as absurd as it sounds is a skill that has to be developed. The jaw muscles have to acclimate to chewing and strengthen accordingly in a gradual process. It is because of these difficulties that we should not serve entire chunks of hard fruits to our children. Instead, we could toss them in a blender and serve juice or grate them into bits and pieces for your child to easily swallow. For vegetables, cooking them for long durations in soups or steaming them may soften the vegetables. This would result in them being suitable for consumption by children.

6. Bones (Any)

Fish bones deserve special mentions as they are particularly hazardous. Children are often unable to spot the tiny and translucent fish bones when consuming fish as they usually do not closely examine their food before eating.  What’s worse is that fish bones are particularly sharp and may cause extreme distress in children if they swallowed the bones. Although other meat sources usually have larger bones in the case of chicken and pork, it is still highly possible for kids to choke on them out of carelessness or ignorance. Parents should serve boneless portions of meat to their children or at the very least, inspect their eating habits and guide them into discovering and removing pieces of bone from the meat.

7. Nuts

The irregular size of nuts makes it very dangerous for children to attempt to consume. Choking on peanut shells is highly possible as well due to children either being too lazy to remove the shell or being ignorant of the fact that the shell is inedible. Avoid serving whole nuts to children. Peanut butter is acceptable only if they are smeared in thin layers on bread or soft biscuits. Do not allow them to eat from the knife or whichever utensil they utilize as those are potentially hazardous in the hands of a child.