It is very important for every parent what to do if a child swallows a plastic part and what to do, who to contact. How not to waste precious time?

The degree of danger

As a rule, plastic parts, such as in a well-known designer, should not be considered particularly hazardous. Moreover, in most cases they can even leave the body in a natural way, especially if their mass is not large, and the contours are spherical or oval.

In addition, all plastics do not change their properties at body temperature, do not oxidize, do not undergo breakdown by pancreatic enzymes or gastric acid.

However, everything is not as cloudless as it might seem at first glance. The process of moving a plastic object through the intestinal tube will irritate the intestinal mucosa, which will lead to spasm of the intestinal tube.

As a result, there is a likelihood of developing acute intestinal obstruction - a life-threatening condition that, without emergency medical care, will lead to death.

In addition to intestinal obstruction, ingestion of plastic foreign objects can lead to organ perforation. However, in the case of plastic products, such a probability is small.

If the part, when swallowed, enters the windpipe, a serious condition may develop associated with blockage of the larynx with a foreign object, which will lead to acute suffocation.

Clinical manifestations

When a foreign object enters the windpipe, a special, characteristic symptom complex arises, which cannot be confused with anything else. In such situations, an attack of coughing occurs, the child's face will turn blue or pale, and salivation will sharply increase.

If a plastic foreign object enters the digestive system, especially if this object is small in size, there may not be any pathological manifestations. The child can be quite active, his behavior will not differ from usual, natural activities will correspond to the norm.

If the swallowed object is large, most likely there will be a sore throat or behind the sternum, increased salivation, fear, and may be nausea and vomiting. It is possible that the intensity and localization of pain will change, correlating with the advancement of a foreign object.

Procedure

First of all, you need to call an ambulance without wasting a second of time. If the child's condition is satisfactory, and the time of arrival of the team has not been determined, it is better to get to the hospital on your own.

What not to do with a child who has swallowed a plastic part?

It is strictly forbidden to force the child to cough, put enemas, provoke vomiting, give laxatives, and also give a piece of stale bread to push a foreign object.

Children are very curious and taste the world around with great pleasure. Therefore, parents are far from always able to protect them from swallowing various foreign objects or inhaling their parts.

Yevgeny Komarovsky, a children's doctor of the highest category, tells how to act in such a situation.

What chokes and is it dangerous?

There are a wide variety of items that a child can easily swallow or inhale, and the degree of severity of the situation must be assessed based on what exactly is swallowed by the baby. It is clear that a small and smooth cherry pit that has entered the digestive tract will not cause any harm to the baby. You don't have to worry - after a while the crumb successfully goes to the toilet and the same cherry bone will be found in the feces. The same can be said for situations in which a child suddenly swallows gum.

Therefore, parents should evaluate the surface of the swallowed object as well as its size.

Even if a child has swallowed a plastic part from a designer, it is only necessary to talk about the danger if this part has sharp, uneven edges, which theoretically can injure the esophagus or intestinal walls.

In this case, parents must definitely contact a medical institution, even if the child looks good and does not show any negative symptoms. Signs may appear later, and it is important to avoid this.

However, a foreign body trapped in the airway rarely "behaves" without symptoms. And such an incident often requires emergency assistance. Indeed, a swallowed foreign object itself, even if it is paper, a napkin, or if the baby choked on food, may well harm the child, but much more often he is harmed by unreasonable and incorrect actions of parents frightened to colic.

Parents should at least roughly imagine not only the size and texture of the swallowed, but also the volume.

A harmless cherry seed will not harm if there is one, two or three at most. But now a handful of such bones can cause intestinal obstruction.

What to do?

If a child swallows a foreign object and begins to vomit, then Komarovsky does not advise parents to interfere in this most important process - the gag reflex is very wisely invented by nature precisely to rid the body of a foreign, outsider.

If the object is swallowed, and the baby does not show reflex attempts to get rid of it, but the object belongs to a dangerous group, it is important to immediately call an ambulance. While the doctors are traveling, the child should not be given anything from food or drink.

If the object is safe and does not bother the child in any way, then you should wait until it leaves the child's body in a completely natural way, along with feces during bowel movements.

It is much more difficult to independently deal with the situation when the child inhaled a small object. A foreign body stuck in the trachea is manifested by a strong suffocating cough, limited inhalation, cyanosis (blue skin and lips) may appear, the child may bulge his eyes, he suffocates and may even lose consciousness.

If the child is breathing, nothing needs to be done, you need to wait for the ambulance.The most that needs to be done if the baby has spontaneous breathing is to open the vents wide open and provide a large amount of regular fresh air.

Attempts to knock the child on the back, shake it upside down will not do any good - the object can move further along the trachea and lead to mechanical asphyxia.

If a foreign body is stuck in the gastrointestinal tract, the symptoms will depend on where it happened. When the esophagus is blocked, it becomes difficult to swallow, saliva flows heavily, there is pain in the chest region.

If the object is stuck in the stomach, pain will be in the abdomen, unproductive urge to vomit will appear. With a blockage of the intestine, abdominal pain occurs, blood and mucus appears in the stool, there may be no bowel movements, and bloating may occur.

First aid

Komarovsky advises to provide first aid only if the child is not breathing. In this case, the Heimlich trick, which every mother should know, will help. While the baby is coughing, this means that there is a chance that the body will get rid of the foreign object itself.

If the coughing has stopped and the object does not come out, you need to move on to active actions.

• Take a position behind the child, standing with the front of the body to his back, hug him from behind with your arms.
• Squeeze your right hand into a fist and place the bend of your thumb on the tummy between the navel and the ribs.
• The open palm of the second hand is placed on the fist from above and with quick and precise movements, the fist is pressed into the stomach.
• Repeat as many times as necessary to clear the airways. If everything worked out, the skin acquires a normal color, breathing is restored.

If the child is small, place him on a firm, level surface (on the floor) and take a kneeling position next to him. The middle and index fingers of the mother's hands should be put to the child in the same epigastric region described above, it should be pressed gently, up towards the diaphragm.

If the child pushed something into his nose, Komarovsky recommends using a technique called "mom's kiss." The admission was coined in 1965 by the Canadian emergency physician Stephanie Cook.

The essence of the method is as follows:

1. the mother tightly puts her lips to the child's mouth;
2. hand closes the nostril free of foreign objects;
3. inhales strongly into the baby's mouth;
4. the air flow "presses" on the foreign object and it leaves the place in the nasal passages.

The method helps in about 60% of cases. But even if the reception was successful, the child should still be examined by a doctor as soon as possible.

For another first aid reception from Dr. Komarovsky, see the next video.

Prohibited parenting

While the ambulance is on its way, an open window and vigilant observation of the baby's behavior and well-being from adults will be enough.

No need to try to push objects stuck in the esophagus or nose by any means at hand. This can be reached by parents who have ever met or heard from the older generation recommendations to give a choking child something harsh, such as a bread crust or rusk.

If a potentially dangerous object is swallowed and there is no vomiting, some parents risk giving a laxative or mechanically induce vomiting by pressing on the root of the tongue. A too sharp object, such as glass, if swallowed safely, can seriously injure the esophagus when vomiting.

While you are waiting for the arrival of the ambulance team, do not allow a child who is choking to actively move, jump, run. And all the more, there is no need to shake him, pound him on the back, shout, panic and additionally frighten the child.

No matter how we tried to protect the baby from danger, no one is immune from accidents. Therefore, all parents should know how to provide first aid to a child. After all, the life of the baby can depend on the actions of loved ones, especially since in emergency situations the count sometimes goes on for minutes.

According to statistics, every year millions of foreign bodies enter the gastrointestinal tract of children. This happens as a result of careless handling of small objects and through parental oversight. How not to get lost in such a situation?

Most often, the diagnosis of "foreign body" is exposed in early childhood. As soon as the kids begin to crawl and then walk, they quickly master territories and objects that were previously inaccessible to them, and some of them must be strictly out of the reach of children. Acquaintance with new objects occurs in the most detailed way through all available senses. The child needs to turn and examine the "toy" from all sides, be sure to smell it, and most importantly - to determine the degree of its edibility. The result of this curiosity is that objects get into the mouth, and then into the baby's gastrointestinal tract or respiratory tract.

If you witness such a situation, urgently call an ambulance. The baby must be under medical supervision, even if there are no symptoms in the first hours and he feels good. A foreign body with sharp edges (needles, pins, badges, etc.) can get stuck in different parts of the gastrointestinal tract, which increases the risk of puncturing its wall. Large and heavy foreign bodies (for example, a metal ball) that do not leave on their own and are in the intestine for a long time can cause significant damage to the wall with bleeding or perforation (violation of integrity). Therefore, if a foreign body enters the gastrointestinal tract, it is imperative to make sure that it came out, for which each chair of the child is carefully examined.

If the child was not in your field of vision when everything happened, it will be much more difficult to identify the presence of a foreign body in the gastrointestinal tract. In addition, children, fearing punishment, often hide this fact from their parents.

Usually babies swallow small things - toys or their parts, coins, buttons, bones from fruits. As a rule, the child does not experience any unpleasant sensations, with the exception of fright. In the future, the baby may not have complaints, since in most cases, small objects come out within 2-3 days on their own.

If the object is of considerable size and blocks the lumen of the esophagus, then choking, profuse salivation, may be hiccups, belching, nausea, vomiting. Any food and water eaten comes back.

Caution, batteries!

Seek medical attention immediately if a battery is found as a foreign body. In the stomach, containing hydrochloric acid, the nutrient, being oxidized and releasing corrosive substances, can damage the mucous membrane due to chemical burns. Ulcers can form at this site, leading to life-threatening complications. Disk batteries are especially dangerous in the esophagus, where they can quickly cause necrosis and perforation (death and rupture) of its wall.

The child has swallowed a foreign object: what to do?

As you can see, baby's behavior and symptoms will depend on the size, shape, material of the object that the baby swallowed. If you suspect the presence of a foreign body in the gastrointestinal tract, first of all, the question of the earliest delivery of the baby to the hospital should be resolved. It is necessary to urgently call an ambulance and take the child to a hospital, preferably to a multidisciplinary one, which has a surgical, X-ray, endoscopic, ultrasound department, available around the clock. In Moscow, these are Izmailovskaya DGKB, Filatovskaya DGKB, St. Vladimir's Hospital, etc.

Before the ambulance arrives, parents do not need to make any attempts to pull out, shake out or “push” the foreign body further into the stomach (for example, by giving the child bread). By your actions, you can only harm. You can not feed and water the child, including. You can moisten your lips with water if they are dry. We must try, if possible, to calm the baby down and collect the necessary documents for the hospital: a medical policy for the child and the mother.

If the baby is coughing, gagging, choking, you can tap the edge of your hand or fingers on his back between the shoulder blades, directing the blows from the bottom up, throwing the baby over the knee so that the upper body is lowered. A child under 1 year old is placed on his hand face down, the head is slightly lowered, the index or middle finger of the "supporting" hand is placed in the child's mouth, opening it, and the back is patted with the free hand. This should not be done if the baby can breathe, as harsh patting can dislodge the object in such a way that it blocks the airways or causes them to swell, making breathing seriously difficult. Do not forget that the main task of the actions taken is to make breathing easier (if it is difficult). If there is no difficulty in breathing, then you should wait for the arrival of an ambulance.

In the hospital: examination and removal

In the admission department, the child is examined by a pediatrician and a surgeon, if necessary, additional examinations are carried out: X-ray, endoscopic or ultrasound. It should be remembered that only metal foreign bodies, stones and some types of glass are visible on the X-ray image - plastic and wooden objects cannot be detected due to the texture of the material. Based on the examination and these research methods, a diagnosis is made and the level of the foreign body is determined. The child is left in the hospital and, in most cases, is observed until the object is removed on its own (usually 2-3 days), with a laxative prescribed.

If urgent removal of a foreign body is necessary or its movement through the gastrointestinal tract is difficult, then in 99% of cases the endoscopic method of treatment helps. This is possible when the foreign body is not lower than the duodenum, where a fibroesophagogastroduodenoscope can reach (endoscope 1, with which you can remove a foreign body from the upper gastrointestinal tract: esophagus, stomach, initial parts of the small intestine). Removal of a foreign body is carried out using an endoscopic loop, basket or clamps passed through the endoscope, which is inserted through the mouth 2.

Sometimes a foreign body can be pushed through the apparatus, and in the future, when taking a laxative, this will help it to leave the body in a natural way faster. If it was not possible to remove a foreign body endoscopically, laparoscopic or abdominal surgery is performed, which is always more traumatic for the body and is associated with a much larger number of possible complications. Laparoscopic surgery differs from abdominal surgery in that a large incision is not made on the anterior abdominal wall, but a laparoscope 3 and special surgical instruments that surgeons work with are inserted through small holes into the abdominal cavity. The method of surgical intervention is chosen by the surgeon depending on where the foreign body is located, what its shape and size are, taking into account the condition of the child.

Prevention

You should not leave the crumb alone unattended. It is necessary to remove small dangerous objects in a place inaccessible to the baby. You should be extremely careful about the choice of toys: they must correspond to the age of the baby and not have small and easily breakable parts.

1 Endoscope - (Greek endo - "inside", skopeo - "to look at, examine") is the general name for tubular optical devices with an illumination device, designed for visual examination of cavities and body channels, into which the endoscope is inserted through natural or artificial openings.
2 See the article "Endoscopy", No. 4, 2007.
3 Laparoscope (Greek lapara - belly, skopeo - "to examine, examine") is a kind of endoscope, which is a metal tube with a complex system of lenses and a light guide. The laparoscope is designed to transmit images from the abdominal cavity of the human body.

Alexey Krasavin, endoscopist,
Izmailovskaya DGKB, Moscow

Pieces of glass will often end up in a drink if you are not careful when opening bottles with a corkscrew. Sometimes there is a defective bottle in the store, in which there are small pieces of glass at the bottom. Small children can swallow a piece of broken glass from a Christmas tree toy. How risky is it for life? People sometimes accidentally swallow pieces of glass. This material is extremely strong and will not be digested in the stomach. In addition, the shards have dangerous sharp edges. What happens if you swallow a small piece of glass? How to act: rush to the hospital or try home methods?

Features of the structure of the esophagus

The gastrointestinal tract is a long, flexible muscular tube. If a person swallows food, the muscles contract and push the food further. Indigestible edible substances and inedible objects pass through the tract unchanged.

Substances of artificial origin (iron, glass, plastic) do not change in the intestinal tract, therefore it is risky to swallow these items.

What happens if you eat glass?

The risk of foreign bodies entering the body is not excluded. What happens if you swallow a small piece of glass? All danger depends on its shape and volume. Sharp pieces of glass can damage organs. What happens if you eat a piece of glass with pointed ends? Minor tissue puncture and mild bleeding in the intestinal tract may occur. Blood can be found in fecal samples.

But what happens if you swallow a small piece of glass with food? As soon as food is swallowed, it rapidly passes through the esophagus into the stomach. In a narrow section of the stomach there is an exit, a gatekeeper. Pieces that are too large cannot come out through it. They stay in the stomach. The doctor is able to remove pieces through the mouth using a flexible device - an endoscope. Anything passed by the gatekeeper is unlikely to provoke problems.

What happens if you swallow a small piece of glass? It is more dangerous to swallow small pieces with sharp ends. They can cut through tissue and cause infection.

Symptoms of an unsafe item being swallowed

What happens if you swallow a small piece of glass with water, because the mouth and the human tongue are very sensitive? Usually, a person has time to identify foreign bodies before swallowing.

However, children sometimes taste different things and drinks and may swallow unwanted items. A father and mother can immediately find out that their child has absorbed an object hazardous to health. A number of signs suggest that the child has swallowed a small piece of glass.

Among them:

• vomiting;
• salivation;
• stomach ache;
• difficulty swallowing;
• stool change;
• strange sounds in the stomach.

For any of these signs, the child should be immediately shown to the doctor or an ambulance should be called. Small pieces from bottles and glasses are not easily seen on x-rays. If there are no severe acute pains, doctors wait 24 hours for the fragments to come out completely on their own.

What is the threat to children?

There is a health hazard if the child swallows the shrapnel. What happens if you swallow a small piece of glass? Little explorers are curious, and the best way to analyze objects around them is to taste them. Glass objects are often the subject of study. In this case, you need to know what the risk of swallowing the glass is. The outcome of a situation depends on the characteristics, shape and surface of the element. The child can eat a piece from the glass. So what happens if you swallow a piece of glass from a glass? It gets stuck in the esophagus and can damage it. If the object is of an even shape (for example, balls), you can consider yourself lucky. The danger is reduced to the usual stuck in the stomach, and damage can be excluded. No need to worry, there are a number of methods that can be used to get rid of a stuck object. The most important thing is to act swiftly, especially if the situation has developed in full view of the parents.

What if the baby ate the shard?

What if I swallowed a small piece of glass? If the child has eaten the glass, the most important thing is to stay calm and not panic. A similar situation can happen to anyone, therefore, it is essential to act swiftly and clearly.

Firstly, you can carefully remove the visible part of the object yourself, and secondly, you need to call an ambulance. You do not need to let everything go by itself, as a piece that gets inside the body can provoke serious consequences. Small pieces can be removed directly, but even they can touch internal organs. If the piece is large, it can get stuck in the stomach for a long time. In this case, an operation is indispensable.

Immediate action if the glass enters the stomach

In the event that a person immediately noticed the swallowing of glass, then it is most correct to provoke vomiting. The piece will be rapidly removed from the body with food and mucus without causing much damage. If this happens to the child, then vomiting must be induced artificially, pressing on the root of the tongue.

After that, even after making sure that the fragment came out, it is necessary to contact the doctor, describing the situation. He will give advice for further actions and prescribe a study that will detect defects in internal organs, if any.

Urgent activities:

1. In the event that the glass did not come out with vomiting, it is necessary to immediately call an ambulance, describing the situation, and prepare for hospitalization.
2. In the event that it took more than 2 hours, the units could have time to move into the intestinal tract and worsen the situation. Then only a highly qualified doctor will decide what to do, who should be notified as clearly as possible about the size of the fragment and the time of the accident.
3. X-rays in such a situation are often ineffective, since the glass in its glimpses does not contrast.
4. You should not count on the fact that the fragment is very small, and sit at home until it comes out naturally.
5. Laxatives and enemas are also not recommended without medical research.
6. If the fragment does not go immediately after vomiting, secondary efforts can be dangerous, therefore, calling a doctor and waiting for an ambulance to arrive will be preferable.
7. A lot of activity during this period is also harmful, since every movement can provoke internal injuries.

Small pieces often actually leave the body in a natural way, bringing almost no inconvenience to their owner. However, it is not necessary to count on this, since ignoring in this case threatens with serious injury and even death.

Small children often ingest glass by accident. In order to avoid the penetration of glass into the body, you should carefully monitor the child. It is not recommended to allow the use of glass objects for play. Such accessories should be kept out of the reach of children. Parents are obliged to wean the child from holding various objects in his mouth.

To prevent a child from accidentally falling on glass objects, the following rules should be observed:

• fragile items must not be forgotten in the child's field of vision;
• remove all breakable decor items from the reach of children;
• if the glass object is broken - to protect the child, not allowing him to get to the broken glass, and carefully collect everything;
• follow the child while walking on the street;
• do not leave the baby alone for a long time;
• do not feed from glassware.

Output

Glass is a dangerous foreign object. It has the potential to inflict sufficiently serious injury.

Swallowing glass is fraught with wounds in the mouth and digestive tract. Therefore, it is necessary to be careful and, in the event of an emergency, to take urgent measures.

Here you will learn what to do if you swallow an object: fish bones, a piece of meat, fragments of large bones, artificial teeth can get stuck in the esophagus, and in children - buttons, coins, needles, pins, batteries, fruit bones, etc.

When providing first aid when an object is swallowed, the victim can be advised to swallow liquid food, oiled porridge, water. This relaxes the esophagus and a trapped foreign body or object can pass (fall) into the stomach. If this does not help, then the patient who has swallowed the object should be immediately referred to a doctor.

It should be remembered if an object is swallowed that you cannot swallow a crust of bread when there is a bone in the esophagus - this can stick it into the mucous membrane of the esophagus.

Swallowed coins, nails, safety pins, hairpins, batteries and other objects enter the gastrointestinal tract (more often in children).

In the vast majority of cases, a swallowed foreign body that has passed the esophagus, within 5-10 days, passes to the rectum and comes out.

When assisting, impressionable people need to be reassured, victims of swallowing objects should be prescribed more bulky food (vegetable and mashed potatoes, all kinds of cereals, cabbage, slimy decoctions). Laxatives should not be used.

If sharp and bulky objects (needle, spoon) get through the mouth, the victim should be sent to the hospital for constant X-ray monitoring of the movement of the object through the intestines.

Lumps of sugar, seeds of fruits, artificial teeth, seeds, caps of hunting sleeves, batteries and other objects can get into the windpipe - trachea, bronchi. And immediately there is a paroxysmal cough, which indicates the ingestion of a foreign body when swallowed into the windpipe, and not into the esophagus. The victim in fright grabs his throat, runs out of the room. Making unnecessary movements, he spends a lot of energy, turns blue (from lack of air), wheezes. The people around him rush about in panic, not knowing how to help. This makes the victim even more depressed, he loses strength and hope for salvation.

When providing assistance, especially to children, it is necessary first of all to create complete physical peace, give an influx of clean air and try to remove the swallowed foreign body with a simple and accessible method. The child must be lifted upside down and shaken; at the same time, another adult rhythmically compresses the chest, increasing exhalation (as in artificial respiration). Due to its gravity and the push of air when the chest is compressed, an object from the lungs or windpipe can enter the mouth.

If a swallowed bulky foreign body is visible in the pharynx, it must be very carefully removed with a tool or finger, taking all measures not to push the object further. If the victim suffocates, faints, artificial respiration should be started immediately.

There are, for example, such cases: a five-year-old boy drank tea with sugar in the bite and, laughing, choked. Wriggling convulsively, he turned blue. His father grabbed him in his arms and, trying to hold him back, strongly squeezed his chest. A lump of sugar flew out of the trachea, and all the symptoms of suffocation disappeared. An accidentally produced strong exhalation saved the child's life.

Or here's another example. A six-year-old boy ate compote and choked. The apricot bone got into the trachea. To push her further, the parents, thinking that she was in the esophagus, began to tap the child on the back. His condition deteriorated markedly, and on the second day he died. At autopsy, the bone was found in the place where the trachea divides into two bronchi. They almost completely covered their lumen.

If the boy were immediately turned upside down and, shaking, made an intensified exhalation, the bone could fall out or at least remain in the wider lumen of the trachea, and then the called doctor could save the child.

In all cases of ingestion of swallowed foreign bodies into the respiratory tract, the victims should be immediately referred to a hospital or receive medical attention on the spot. When evacuating a patient, a medical worker must be accompanied; on the way, cardiovascular activity and respiration must be maintained.