New Year's Day and spring festival "two festivals" are approaching, the third affiliated hospital of Zhengzhou University in Henan Province (Henan Provincial Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Provincial Women and Children's Hospital) pediatric respiratory doctor reminds that the holiday is a time of high incidence of foreign bodies in children's trachea, and parents must be vigilant.
During the holidays, snacks such as nuts are often prepared at home, which increases the chances of exposing children to hard foods.
According to the doctor, children's teeth are not yet fully developed, the chewing function is poor, the hard food cannot be chewed, and the defense reflex function of the throat is poor, so it is easy to inhale food into the trachea when crying or laughing.
How can parents judge that a child has an airway foreign body? When a child has hard food or small toys in his mouth, if he suddenly laughs, cries or falls, if he has a violent cough, or even a brief breath holding and bruises, he must be highly suspicious of a foreign body in the airway.
Doctors remind that if the foreign body is embedded in the glottis, the child may have hoarseness and breathing difficulties, and severe cases will be life-threatening; if the foreign body enters the trachea or bronchi, in addition to a slight cough and wheezing, there may be no other symptoms in the short term; if the foreign body is blocked in the airway for a long time, it will lead to complications such as bronchitis, pneumonia, atelectasis, and pneumothorax.
Parents should teach children not to develop the habit of having hard objects in their mouths. When children are found to have food in their mouths, do not make them cry, laugh and talk, but should patiently persuade them to spit it out. If the child is already crying, he can no longer be forced to eat. Parents should keep small items that are easy for children to inhale in places that are not available to children. When your child vomits, he or she should tilt his head to one side so that the vomit is not inhaled into the trachea. If there is a foreign body in the child's throat, it should never be dug up with the fingers, nor can it be suppressed by swallowing a large piece of food, and it should be tried to induce it to spit out.
If you suspect that your child has a foreign body in the airway, parents must first maintain calm, stabilize the child's mood, and try to encourage the child to cough out the foreign body through coughing. If nothing works, call 120 immediately and use the following methods of first aid:
1
Heimlich First Aid
The rescuer uses one arm from behind to wrap around the child's waist and abdomen, clenches the fist to press the child's navel and ribs, and the other hand is covered above the fist at the same time, and the hands are simultaneously squeezing the child's body inward and upward, and repeated operations until the child spits out the obstruction.
2
Pushing the abdomen
Let the child lie on his back on the table or on a hard flat object, and the rescuer will press one hand between the child's abdomen umbilicus and the saber process, while applying appropriate pressure upwards; the other hand should be placed on the child's chest wall to pressurize, repeatedly, until the child coughs up the foreign body.
Doctors say that parents who master these first aid methods can save their children's lives in a critical moment and also win valuable time for first responders.
Contributed by: Zhu Zhijie, Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University