What is choking?
When an infant is choking, their airway is partly or completely blocked, meaning that they may be unable to breathe properly. They might be able to clear it by coughing, but if they can’t, you will need to help them straight away.
Signs and symptoms
Look for:
- difficulty breathing, speaking or coughing
- signs of distress and they may point to their throat or grasp their neck.Causes.
- Choking in infants is usually caused by breathing in a small object that the baby has placed in their mouth, such as a button, coin, balloon, toy part, or watch battery. Choking may result from a complete or partial blockage of the airway. A complete blockage is a medical emergency.
- A baby may be choking if they:
- stop making noise while eating and appear panicked or unable to breathe
- suddenly stop coughing
- make a high-pitched wheezing sound
- get a blue tinge to the lips or skin
- look frantic or scared and cannot make noise
- lose consciousness
Tips on helping a choking child
- If you can see the object, try to remove it. Don’t poke blindly or repeatedly with your fingers. You could make things worse by pushing the object further in and making it harder to remove.
- If your child’s coughing loudly, encourage them to carry on coughing to bring up what they’re choking on and don’t leave them.
- If your child’s coughing isn’t effective (it’s silent or they can’t breathe in properly), shout for help immediately and decide whether they’re still conscious.
- If your child’s still conscious, but they’re either not coughing or their coughing isn’t effective, use back blows.
Back blows for babies under 1 year
- Sit down and lay your baby face down along your thigh or forearm, supporting their back and head with your hand.
- Give up to 5 sharp back blows with the heel of 1 hand in the middle of the back between the shoulder blades.
Back blows for children over 1 year
- Lay a small child face down on your lap as you would a baby.
- If this isn’t possible, support your child in a forward-leaning position and give 5 back blows from behind.
If back blows don’t relieve the choking and your baby or child is still conscious, give chest thrusts to infants under 1 year or abdominal thrusts to children over 1 year.
This will create an artificial cough, increasing pressure in the chest and helping to dislodge the object.
Chest thrusts for children under 1 year
- Lay your baby face up along the length of your thighs.
- Find the breastbone and place 2 fingers in the middle.
- Give 5 sharp chest thrusts (pushes), compressing the chest by about a third.
Abdominal thrusts for children over 1 year
- Stand or kneel behind your child. Place your arms under the child’s arms and around their upper abdomen.
- Clench your fist and place it between the navel and ribs.
- Grasp this hand with your other hand and pull sharply inwards and upwards.
- Repeat up to 5 times.
- Make sure you don’t apply pressure to the lower rib cage, as this may cause damage.
Following chest or abdominal thrusts, reassess your child as follows
- If the object still isn’t dislodged and your child’s still conscious, continue the sequence of back blows and either chest or abdominal thrusts.
- Call out or send for help, if you’re still on your own.
- Don’t leave the child.
Dial and Call your emergency response Team, if the blockage doesn’t come out after trying back blows and either chest or abdominal thrusts. Keep trying this cycle until help arrives.