Emergency symptoms: Choking; inability to breathe or cry
Emergency treatment: Call police or paramedic squad.
Symptoms: Gagging; pain in throat or chest; difficulty swallowing; abdominal pain; vomiting
Home care:
A small, smooth object that the child has swallowed should pass out of the body in the stool without treatment; examine the stools until the object is passed.
In the case of a larger object, examine each stool to see if the object has been passed. If it does not appear within one week, notify the doctor.
- Do not give the child a laxative in an effort to speed passage of a swallowed object.
- No medication or other agent is available to speed up or make safer the passage of a swallowed object through the system.
- An object lodged in the oesophagus must be removed promptly, preferably by a doctor.
- Any object that has not left the body within one week should be reported to the doctor.
Over 95 percent of the cent-size foreign objects that are swallowed by children cause no trouble and pass from the body in the child’s stool. However, objects that are larger may become lodged in the oesophagus (the tube through which food passes on its way to the stomach). Sharp objects (pins, needles, bones, matchsticks, nails, glass splinters) may lodge in the tonsils, throat, or oesophagus. Objects longer than a toothpick may not be able to pass out of the stomach and may have to be removed surgically.
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