A child dies from choking on food every five days in the US. The third most likely foodstuff children are in peril of choking on is, perhaps surprisingly, whole grapes. This shocking X-ray was recently shared by the Finlee and Me parenting blog along with some simple advice to help stop that from happening. The X-ray shows a 5-year-old child who had to make a trip to A&E after swallowing a whole grape. Although the kid was left in a worrying state, the grape was fortunately not big enough to block their airways so they were still able to breathe. Nevertheless, the fruit was stuck so far in their windpipe the doctors had to remove it by operating on them under general anesthetic. Of course, as the post points out, this could all have been avoided if the parents had simply cut the grape up into more manageable chunks. “Please be careful. And when in doubt just cut the damn grapes or baby tomatoes,” said Angela Henderson, who runs the Finlee and Me blog. Among the top most choked on foods are hot dogs, sweets, and whole grapes, according to a study by the Archives of Disease in Childhood. “There is general awareness of the need to supervise young children when they are eating and to get small solid objects, and some foods such as nuts, promptly out of the mouths of small children; but knowledge of the dangers posed by grapes and other similar foods is not widespread,” warn the authors. Source
