A tragic accident caused the death last Friday, April 12, of a four-year-old child in Olot, Girona. The little boy was playing with his brothers in a room of the family house when he swallowed a balloon and was left breathless. The little boy was taken to the emergency room of the Olot Regional Hospital, where the doctors tried to do everything possible to save him, including a tracheostomy so that he could breathe, but the balloon had become lodged in a deep point in his trachea where, despite this intervention, it continued to obstruct his airways.
It is not the first time that such a case has occurred, since balloons are one of the most dangerous objects for young children. According to the Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP) in the "Guide for parents on the prevention of unintentional injuries in children" 65% of the cases in which children suffer airway obstruction due to external objects occur in children between 1 and 3 years of age. 80% correspond to dried fruits. There is another age peak, older children, in whom the objects vacuumed are plastic school supplies. This guide also reflects that "small objects should not be left within the reach of children, nor objects that can be disassembled into small pieces. Keep in mind that an infant with incisors is capable of tearing any type of packaging, even paper tissues are broken down with saliva." Furthermore, in the "Main Accidents Report by Age", also from the AEP, it is recalled that "great care must be taken with balloons and balloon pieces; they should not be put in the mouth because they can obstruct the airway."
In the guide that we cited previously, experts also warn that extreme caution must be taken with other objects such as coins (they are the object that children most frequently ingest. A small percentage (30%) remain stuck in the esophagus, which represents the only emergency in these cases, requiring their extraction in the next few hours in most cases), batteries, magnets, sharp objects (pins, needles, safety pins, thorns). fish, represent 5-30% of foreign bodies ingested) and long objects (6-10 cm), since they are among the objects that children swallow most frequently.
Warnings from pediatricians
Not only do balloons have a great risk of causing swallowing and suffocation in young children, therefore, pediatricians insist on being clear about a series of precautions that we must take into account with children under 5 years of age, as stated on Instagram by Lucía Galán, better known online as "Lucía, my pediatrician": "Children under 5 years of age should not play with balloons, nor eat whole nuts (only ground), nor whole grapes, nor candies. hard meats, or pitted olives, or sliced sausages, or feeding them while they run through the park.
When these misfortunes happen, we can only empathize and send all our support to the family.
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