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Baby choking after feeding


Choking First Aid (Infant, Up to Age 1 Year) 

Choking happens when an object gets stuck in the throat or airway. This can block the flow of air and cut off oxygen to the brain. Your baby will have a weak cough and trouble breathing or noisy breathing.

Young babies may choke if they swallow breastmilk or formula too quickly or if they have too much mucus.

Any object small enough to go into your baby's airway can block it. This includes small food pieces like nuts, grapes, beans, popcorn, hotdogs, or food that hasn’t been chewed well. Household objects like buttons, marbles, coins, latex balloons, and beads are also common choking hazards. Small toy parts can also cause your child to choke.

If your baby is choking, give first aid right away. This will clear the airway so your baby can breathe.

Signs of a blocked airway

These are signs of choking:

  • Violent coughing

  • A high-pitched sound when breathing in

  • Your baby can’t cough, breathe, or cry

  • Face turns pale and bluish 

At the first sign of choking

If your baby is conscious, having troublebreathing, and can’t cry or make sounds, start first aid for choking right away. This will clear the airway. Follow these guidelines:

  1. Don't put your finger into the baby’s mouth to remove the object. Your finger could push the object farther into the baby’s throat.

  2. Have someone call 911 if you're not alone.

  3. Sit down. Then lay the baby stomach-down along your forearm. Support the baby’s face (head) and neck in your hand. If you need to, support your arm with the baby along your thigh. Make sure the baby’s head is slightly lower than the rest of his or her body. This will help dislodge the object more easily from the throat.

  4. Use the heel of your free hand to give 5 quick thumps (back blows) between the baby’s shoulder blades.

  5. If the object is still lodged, turn the baby face up on your forearm. Support the head. Place 2 or 3 fingers in the middle of the baby’s breastbone. Push down about 1/2 to 1 inch. Do this 5 times fast.

  6. Check the baby’s mouth to see if the object is dislodged. If not, repeat steps 3 and 4 until the baby’s airway is clear and the baby is breathing normally.

If your baby is not breathing, becomes unconscious, or is unresponsive, follow these guidelines if you are not alone:

  1. Have someone call 911 right away.

  2. Lay the baby on a firm, flat surface, such as a table, the floor, or the ground.

  3. Start infant CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation):

    • Give 30 chest compressions. To do this, use 2 fingers to gently push down on the center of your baby’s chest, just below the nipple line. Push in about 1.5 inches (4 cm). Do this 30 times fast. It should take about 20 seconds.

    • Tilt the baby’s head back and chin down. Check inside the mouth for an object. If you see it, carefully try to sweep it to the side. Be very careful to not push it further into the throat.

    • Give 2 rescue breaths. To do this, gently lift the chin up with one hand and tilt the head back. Cover your baby’s mouth and nose with your mouth. Gently give 2 puffs of air into your baby’s mouth and nose. Each breath should take about 1 second. Watch to see if the baby’s chest rises.

    • If the baby doesn’t start breathing, do another 30 chest compressions followed by 2 rescue breaths.

  4. Continue CPR ( repeat all of step 3) until emergency service arrives or your baby starts breathing.

If your baby is not breathing, becomes unconscious, or is unresponsive, follow these guidelines if you are alone:

  1. Lay the baby on a firm, flat surface such as a table or the floor or ground.

  2. Do CPR for 2 minutes (5 cycles):

    • Give 30 chest compressions. To do this, use 2 fingers to gently push down on the center of your baby’s chest, just below the nipple line. Push in about 1.5 inches (4 cm). Do this 30 times fast. It should take about 20 seconds.

    • Tilt the baby’s head back and chin down. Check inside the mouth for an object. If you see it, carefully try to sweep it to the side. Be very careful to not push it further into the throat.

    • Give 2 rescue breaths. To do this, gently lift the chin up with one hand and tilt the head back. Cover your baby’s mouth and nose with your mouth. Gently give 2 puffs of air into your baby’s mouth and nose. Each breath should take about 1 second. Watch to see if the baby’s chest rises.

    • If the baby doesn’t start breathing, do another 30 chest compressions followed by 2 rescue breaths.

  3. Call 911 after the 5th cycle.

  4. Continue CPR (repeat step 2) until emergency service arrives or your baby starts breathing.

If you are alone, not trained in CPR, and a phone is nearby, call 911.

Prevention

  • Watch your child during meals. Children should sit down to eat. Cut food into small, bite-sized pieces.

  • Check each room in the house every day for small objects like buttons, coins, and toy parts.

  • Try to find the cause of the choking and avoid future problems.

  • Choose large, sturdy toys that don’t have sharp edges or small, removable parts. Safe toys are those that won’t fit into a toilet tissue roll.

  • Check toys often for loose or broken parts.

  • Remove drawstrings from clothing. Avoid tying balloons, long strings, or ribbons near the crib.

Follow-up care

Follow up with your child’s healthcare provider, or as advised.

Special note to parents

Anyone caring for an infant should learn infant or child CPR. Ask your child’s healthcare provider about CPR classes in your area.

Call 911

Call 911 if any of these occur:

  • Continued choking or trouble breathing

  • Wheezing or any unusual breathing noises after a choking incident. An airway that is partially blocked can become completely blocked.

  • Skin, lips, and nails look blue or dusky

  • Child is not alert or is unresponsive

© 2000-2022 The StayWell Company, LLC. All rights reserved. This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical care. Always follow your healthcare professional's instructions.

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Help! My Baby Is Choking on Milk!

Many parents look forward to feeding time with their baby. It’s a chance to bond and also gives you a few minutes of peace and quiet.

But for some, bottle feeding or breastfeeding can lead to gagging or choking sounds, which are alarming if you’re a new parent. Fortunately, there are things you can do to help prevent your baby from choking on milk or formula.

If your baby seems to gag a lot while eating, don’t panic. “Choking and gagging during feeding is common in young infants,” says Robert Hamilton, MD, FAAP, a pediatrician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica.

Hamilton says babies are born with an exaggerated but protective “hyper-gag reflex,” which can cause gagging while feeding. Plus, babies gag easily due to their own neurologic immaturity.

“Babies are growing and learning new ways to use their body (and mouths) every day,” says Amanda Gorman, CPNP and founder of Nest Collaborative, a collection of International Board Certified Lactation Consultants.

“Often, just stopping the feed and positioning the baby upright with good head and neck support will give them a few seconds to manage the problem. ”

Gina Posner, MD, a pediatrician at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center, says if your baby begins to choke, let them stop feeding for a little bit and pat their back. “Typically, if they’re choking on liquids, it will resolve quickly,” she says.

The most common reason a baby chokes during breastfeeding is that milk is coming out faster than your baby can swallow. Usually, this happens when mom has an oversupply of milk.

According to the La Leche League International (LLLI), common signs of oversupply include restlessness at the breast, coughing, choking, or gulping milk, especially at let down, and biting on the nipple to stop the flow of milk, among others.

You might also have an overactive let down, which causes a forceful flow of milk into your baby’s mouth. When your breasts are stimulated by your baby suckling, oxytocin causes the let-down reflex that releases the milk.

If you have an overactive or forceful let down, this release happens too fast for your baby to respond appropriately, causing them to gulp or choke while breastfeeding.

How do I prevent my baby from choking on milk when breastfeeding?

One of the first things you can do to help prevent your baby from choking while eating is to change the feeding position.

“For breastfeeding mothers who appear to have overactive let down, we typically recommend they nurse in a laid-back position, which reverses gravity’s effect and allows baby to have more control,” says Gorman.

Posner recommends pulling your baby off the breast every once in a while to help them catch their breath and slow down. You can also take your baby off the breast for 20 to 30 seconds when your milk first lets down.

In addition to a laid-back position, the LLL recommends lying on your side so your baby can allow milk to dribble out of his mouth when it flows too quickly.

Furthermore, expressing milk for 1 to 2 minutes before bringing your baby to your breast can help. Doing so allows the forceful let down to happen before baby latches. That said, be careful with this technique, as pumping for too long will tell your body to make more milk and worsen the problem.

When your baby gags when drinking from a bottle, it’s often due to the positioning. Lying your baby on their back while bottle feeding will lead to a faster milk flow, making it harder for your baby to control the rate of feeding.

“Tilting the bottom of the bottle higher than the nipple increases the rate of milk flow, as will a nipple with too large of a hole for the infant’s age,” Gorman advises. Tilting the bottle too high can lead to involuntary increases in intake and contribute to problems like reflux.

Instead, when bottle-feeding an infant, try using a technique called paced bottle-feeding. “By keeping the bottle parallel to the ground, the baby remains in control of the milk flow, as they are at the breast,” Gorman says.

This technique allows your baby to actively pull milk out of the bottle using their sucking skills and lets them easily take a break when needed. Otherwise, gravity is in control.

For babies who are bottle-fed by multiple caregivers, Gorman says all of the people who administer feeds should be educated on paced bottle-feeding.

Finally, you should never prop the bottle up to feed your baby and walk away. Since they can’t control the flow of the milk, it will keep coming even if your baby is not ready to swallow.

“The mechanism of swallowing is complicated and requires several muscle groups working together in concert and in the right time sequence,” Hamilton says. Fortunately, gagging usually diminishes as children get older and become better at swallowing.

Still, if you’re a new parent or caregiver, it’s smart to take infant cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). While rare, a choking episode that caused your baby to turn blue or lose consciousness would be an emergency.

If you’re having problems related to breastfeeding, contact a LLL leader or International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). They can help you with your baby’s latch, positioning, oversupply issues, and forceful let-down problems.

If you’re having problems related to bottle feeding, contact your child’s pediatrician. They can help you with bottle and nipple selection, as well as feeding positions that prevent choking on milk or formula.

If your baby continues to choke even after slowing down the rate of feeding, you should contact your pediatrician to rule out any anatomical reasons why swallowing may be challenging.

When you hear your baby gagging or choking during feeding, don’t panic. Take baby off the nipple and prop them up to help them clear their airway.

Often it will take a little time for your baby to learn suckle with ease. In the meantime, try keeping your baby upright during feedings and make the flow of milk slower, if possible. Soon enough, feeding time will be a sweet snuggle session!

The child chokes when feeding: what to do?

Nikulina Anastasia Anatolyevna

pediatrician

A newborn chokes when feeding for various reasons. Some of them the mother can eliminate, while others depend on the health of the baby. The pediatrician Anastasia Anatolyevna Nikulina will explain the causes and solutions to this problem.

— Anastasia Anatolyevna, at what age do children most often choke while feeding? nine0010

— In the first weeks of life, when the swallowing reflex is still very weak, it is difficult to dose milk supply from the breast. From the bottle, the flow of formula is controlled by the opening in the nipple and the tilt. If the hole in the nipple is not age appropriate, it is tight, then the newborn swallows air. Excess air with the mixture will enter the intestines, causing discomfort to the baby.


Why does the baby choke while breastfeeding or bottle feeding

  • Baby position or bottle angle not optimal. in the optimal position. In the right position, the hand of the woman who holds the child lies on the support. Hold the baby by the back and shoulders, directing the head to the chest. You can’t press hard on the head - the baby will recline it back reflexively. nine0019
  • Anatomical features of the mother's breast, in which a woman produces enough breast milk, but it is difficult for a child to suck it out, to eat. Before feeding, the mother needs to express some of the milk or massage the breast: it will become soft, and it will be easier for the baby to suck.
  • Large nipples are difficult for a baby to grab - to solve the problem, there are special nipple covers through which newborns are fed. You can feed your baby with expressed milk through a bottle and a nipple that is correctly selected for age. nine0019
  • Hyperlactation. Pressurized breast milk squirts into the baby's mouth. Before feeding, some of the foremilk is expressed, and the following, more fatty, does not form a strong flow. Breaks in the sucking process also help.
  • Frequent breastfeeding. The absence of long breaks between attachments to the breast prevents children from hunger and, with it, the rush to feed.
  • Incorrect bottle delivery method. The neck of the bottle must be completely filled with milk: this way there will be no air in the milk. The nipple is selected taking into account the age of the baby. nine0019
  • Disease. Nasal obstruction or cough interferes with feeding. Relief of the symptoms of the disease will improve nutrition. For some children, problems can be caused by improper swallowing or reflux.
  • To understand why the baby is having difficulty swallowing, you need to gradually eliminate each of the possible causes. Even the environment matters. During feeding hours, it is desirable for a woman to be alone with the child, nothing should distract him from the process. If the mother finds it difficult to identify the cause, a pediatrician will help her. nine0019

— What should I do if my child chokes on milk or formula?

- Spontaneous cough is the main symptom that appears when the act of sucking and swallowing is disturbed. The baby is crying and refuses to eat.


First aid for choking children

If you can’t cough up excess milk on your own or the baby chokes on saliva and starts to choke, you need to do the following, dosing the force of your actions:

  1. Place the baby on one hand with the belly down, with your free hand apply pressure on the area above the navel (on the area of ​​the baby's stomach), supporting the chin.
  2. Tilt the child slightly forward, lightly pat on the back. This will increase the cough and help restore breathing.

- Can I continue feeding after the baby clears his throat, or should I take a break?

- Feeding can be continued after the baby clears his throat. It is advisable to vilify it with a column for two to three minutes, so that excess air comes out, and then resume feeding. nine0003

- Does increasing the interval between feedings help with the problem?

- On the contrary, the prevention of flooding will be frequent feeding. With numerous attachments, less milk accumulates in the woman’s breast, it becomes easier for the mother to feed.

If the child is choking, feeding should be interrupted. The baby will cough, rest and continue to suck. If the situation recurs frequently, be sure to consult your pediatrician. Your doctor can help you find the best breastfeeding or formula-feeding method for you. nine0003

* Breast milk is the best food for babies. WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of a child's life and continued breastfeeding after complementary foods are introduced until the age of 2 years. Before introducing new products into the baby's diet, you should consult with a specialist. The material is for informational purposes and cannot replace the advice of a healthcare professional. For feeding children from birth. The product is certified.

#Tips for Mom #regurgitation 7-12 #regurgitation 12 plus

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The baby gets tired quickly when feeding and breathes often: symptoms, diagnosis

With the advent of the baby, all the mother's attention is focused on feeding the baby. After all, I really want the baby to gain weight well. But often during feeding, a woman notices that the baby gets tired quickly. In such a situation, the baby's breathing quickens, which prevents him from eating the prescribed norm. If such a picture is observed with frightening frequency, it is necessary to find out the cause of the problem. nine0003

In pediatric cardiology, there are several important signs that indicate heart problems in a young patient. The children's cardiologist of the multidisciplinary center "Edkarik" will be able to figure out what caused the difficulties in feeding. At the first negative symptoms in the baby, parents should contact us to exclude the presence of a serious heart pathology in the crumbs.

Features of breathing in infants

It should be noted right away that difficulty breathing during feeding is not always an indicator of an existing heart pathology. Such a symptom is typical for respiratory diseases, breathing difficulties may be associated with structural features of the nasal septum. This problem is often observed in the first weeks due to undeveloped breasts in the mother. The child has to make every effort to get the right portion of food. Therefore, he quickly gets tired, and his breathing goes astray from the normal rhythm. nine0003

The breathing of children in the first months of life has its own characteristics. Babies need twice the amount of oxygen, but their respiratory system is not yet completely formed. Certain difficulties in the respiratory function are imposed by narrow nasal passages and weakness of the pectoral muscles. Therefore, breathing in children up to a year is uneven. The child often takes quick breaths, so his breathing is shallow and intermittent.

The norm of respiratory movements in babies of the first month of life is 40-60, from the end of the fourth week and up to 3 months - up to 45, in the period of 4-6 months - 35-40. By the year, the baby is already taking about 30-35 breaths per minute, which is considered the norm. nine0003

Mom can determine the respiratory rate on her own. To do this, put the baby on his back, and use a stopwatch to count the number of breaths. Since babies "breathe" with their tummies, such a calculation is easy to make. The main condition for performing this procedure is that the child must be calm.

When there is no reason to worry

The nervous system of young children is still imperfect, so they cannot control their breathing. During active games and crying, the frequency of respiratory movements increases, and in a dream they often sniffle. If such features are observed sporadically, you should not worry. The sniffing nose can be washed with boiled water, and then carefully remove the dried mucus. nine0003

What should cause alarm

You need to see a doctor if the baby:

  • holds his breath for a long time;
  • exhales noisily;
  • if breathing is accompanied by wheezing and wheezing.

Typically, such symptoms can be traced against the background of an acute period of respiratory diseases. Timely treatment will help to quickly eliminate these negative signs, after which the child will be able to breastfeed normally again.

Which symptoms require special attention

We have listed physiological breathing problems. But sometimes the situation is much more serious than the usual runny nose. We list the signs that should be a strong argument for parents to urgently visit a pediatric cardiologist.

  • Cyanosis

If holding the breath during feeding is accompanied by a blue nasolabial triangle, this sign indicates a lack of oxygen. In severe forms of cardiac pathologies, the chin and fingers of the baby turn blue. This symptom is characteristic of congenital malformations of both the heart and vascular anomalies. nine0003

  • Shortness of breath

This symptom also indicates a lack of oxygen. Since the child has to expend more energy during sucking, this symptom is more pronounced than at rest. A cause for concern can be considered frequent breaks for rest during suckling. Normally, there are no more than two such pauses, and a child with heart disease takes breaks after 2-3 sips.

  • Fatigue

Infants with congenital heart defects are much less active than healthy children. They are not able to suck out the norm during feeding, so they lose weight. The problem is aggravated by frequent breathing. The child simply suffocates under tension. nine0003

  • Chest pain

Infants may not complain of such a symptom, but an observant mother will notice under what circumstances and how often the child begins to worry.

If all the described signs are repeated from the baby during feeding regularly, it is urgent to consult a pediatric cardiologist. A full-scale examination will determine the cause of the problem, and an experienced pediatric cardiologist will prescribe adequate therapy for the child. nine0003

Peculiarities of diagnosing infants

Babies under one year old cannot describe the symptoms that prevent them from developing normally. Therefore, all hope for an objective examination. During the initial examination of the infant, a pediatric cardiologist:

  • evaluates the general condition;
  • notes the color of the skin;
  • listens to the baby's heart;
  • performs heart rate monitoring and saturation level measurement.

The doctor pays special attention to taking an anamnesis, since such information can indicate the cause of the problem. For example, an infection transmitted by a woman during her mother's pregnancy can provoke the development of congenital heart defects. An important factor is heredity, especially if there were cases of premature death (up to 50 years) among close relatives in the family. After collecting the data, the pediatric cardiologist will definitely prescribe the following types of diagnostic procedures:

  • ECG with daily monitoring;
  • ultrasound of the heart;
  • Chest x-ray;
  • Laboratory tests.

Instrumental methods of examination with the use of modern devices will clarify the parameters of the baby's heart and the features of its anatomical structure. Ultrasound diagnostics helps to identify defects in the heart chambers and great vessels. Having the data of all studies at hand, the pediatric cardiologist will draw up an individual treatment program, or prescribe additional procedures. In severe cardiac pathologies and rhythm disturbances, the question of a surgical way to eliminate the problem can be decided. nine0003

Examination and treatment in the center "Edkarik"

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  • professionalism of doctors;
  • high quality service;
  • comfortable conditions in the clinic;
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