Choking in infants

docs2meds
3 min readDec 30, 2020

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Small kids and infants are relatively hard to tackle because of the lack of proper communication through words or expressions. In such circumstances, the risks and complexities involved are high and nobody would like to take a chance at any cost.

Choking in infants can be tough to identify as even the smallest object can obstruct their usual breathing process and eventually choke them. We always believe that it’s important to keep yourself one step ahead of any emergency. So, read on to equip yourself with some genuine steps that can be of great help in encountering a similar situation in the future.

What to do when a baby gets choked?

Do not panic if your baby gets choked else you will screw up the precious time that you could have utilized to make things better.

How to do so?

Pretty simple! Just follow the given steps with utmost care:

BackBlows and Mouth Check
  • BACK BLOWS

If the baby can’t breathe, lay his head along the length of your forearm supporting his head. Support the rest of the entire body on your thighs by being in a sitting position. Use the heel of your hands to give about 5 back blows between the shoulders with sufficient pressure to dislodge the obstruction through the mouth.

  • CHECK MOUTH

Turn the baby over and cradle his head with your hands. Keeping the head as low as possible, look into the mouth for some foreign body. If it’s visible, remove it immediately else move to the next step.

  • CHEST THRUSTS

Keep the baby along your forearm, supporting his head and your arm against your thigh. Keep two fingers along the nipple line of the baby and press with enough pressure up to five times at least. Keep checking the mouth for some object.

  • CALL FOR HELP

As the baby is too small and weak, it’s not recommended to do much experiment on your own. Just repeat the above steps around 3 times and if nothing works, call for emergency help services. Keep repeating the steps until the help arrives.

*CAUTION*

Always ensure that your applied pressure is not too strong else it can hurt the baby in many ways.

Summing Up

Make sure that you note every step down for emergency because problems don’t knock before entering so it’s always advisable to keep yourself armed with tactics to handle any obstacle on your and baby’s path.

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