Last Friday, October 2, 2015, was E.V.’s first birthday, it was also the day she almost died. While walking through Sam’s Club looking for snacks for her birthday party on Saturday, I gave her a pretzel to snack on so she wouldn’t be fussy. She snacks on similar things all the time so I saw no harm in it. When she chewed it down to a nub about the size of my thumbnail she tried to toss it (throwing stuff is a new favorite game), but I grabbed it and handed it to her and she popped it into her mouth. Shortly thereafter she started choking.
Last Friday, October 2, 2015, was E.V.’s first birthday, it was also the day she almost died.E.V. eats a lot of grown up food, and she tends to want to swallow before she chews well, then she’ll cough a couple of times and that will send the food back into her mouth and she’ll happily chew it and swallow it later. This time it wasn’t coughing it was choking. So I reached into her mouth to grab the pretzel, but it wasn’t reachable. DO NOT DO THIS! IT WAS A MISTAKE! E.V., like most if not all babies, loves sticking things in her mouth, and I have become so used to fishing stuff out that it was a force of habit. Trying to get the food that is causing a child to choke often does more harm than good, as you can push the food farther into the child’s throat lodging it even more firmly!
Trying to get the food that is causing a child to choke often does more harm than good, as you can push the food farther into the child’s throat lodging it even more firmly!
At this point E.V. stopped coughing, we could see her trying to cough or make noise but her airway was completely blocked. Her lips turned blue, then her face turned blue, and then she went limp. Luckily, I had taken the infant CPR course at UMMC which covered infant Heimlich Maneuver. I turned E.V. face down supporting her chin and head with my hand and her body along my arm so it was as at about a 45º to the floor with her head being lowest. I then pounded on her back with the heel of my other hand. Here’s a link to better instructions: http://www.webmd.com/first-aid/tc/choking-rescue-procedure-heimlich-maneuver-baby-younger-than-1-year.
Her lips turned blue, then her face turned blue, and then she went limp.E.V. started wheezing, which meant a little air was coming through; then she started crying, loudly, which meant the worst was over. I hugged my little girl tight and Lesley and I cried with her. The crying stopped abruptly a couple of seconds later. I held E.V. up in front of me fearing the worst, but apparently she had spit up the pretzel into her mouth and was chewing on it which had stopped the crying. I immediately took the pretzel away and threw it away and E.V. screamed, but I was ok with that trade off.
The whole affair, from choking to hugging it out in relief probably took two minutes on the outside, it felt like an eternity, but two minutes tops in actual, not panic time. Lack of air can lead to permanent brain damage in as little as 4 minutes! (Yes there are extraordinary cases where a baby can go much longer without air, but do you want to experiment with your baby’s life?) Even if we called 911 it would have taken the paramedics longer than 4 minutes to get there.
What about the kindness of strangers you ask, surely someone would/did help? About 10 people passed us in the store during our little adventure, including one employee that shook his head when he saw me hitting E.V., and mostly we just got looks of disapproval, no help was offered at all!
I am extremely grateful to the wonderful people at UMMC that offer free prenatal classes that include baby CPR which saved our daughter’s life. E.V. is fine, eating and playing and signing just as she always has, the troubling episode apparently forgotten.
E.V.’s life was saved by a little bit of knowledge gained from a free class, amazing right? Every parent should be part of this class right? Then why did the class I go to have empty seats?!? There it is, the point of this post. In Jackson MS in 2012 there were 2,523 births, that averages out to just under 7 births a day let’s say 2014 had similar statistics. The classes at UMMC have a varied schedule, some like the Childbirth class are offered monthly and some like the Infant CPR are offered quarterly. So four classes a year for Infant CPR, and since UMMC is one of the major hospitals to have a baby in let’s say 10% of the babies born in Jackson are born at UMMC each year (that’s being conservative as heck) that’s 252 babies in 2012. 252 divided by 4 is 63 babies each quarter. Even if only one parent for each child born shows up to the class then there should be at least 63 parents at each class! There were 4 couples other than us in our class. So of 63 babies, 5 had parents that cared enough about their well being to show up to a free class that could save the baby’s life. Sad.
E.V.’s life was saved by a little bit of knowledge gained from a free class, amazing right? Every parent should be part of this class right? Then why did the class I go to have empty seats?!?For those of you not in Jackson, many hospitals offer similar programs! Even some places like Babies ‘R’ Us offer classes in baby care. The classes and tools are there, utilize them! What you learn could save your baby’s life, and isn’t that worth a couple of hours of your time?
Until next time…
Cheers,
Home Poppy.
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