WASHINGTON — Parents who cut up food for kids might be doing it wrong. That warning comes from an emergency room doctor who finds everyday items around the house can pose more of a hazard than you might suspect.
Toddlers choking on food is something seen quite often in the District’s largest and busiest emergency department.
“Grapes, carrots, apples, popcorn, certain kinds of hard candy — those are all things that can be choked on pretty easily,” said Dr. Maryann Amirshahi, emergency room physician at MedStar Washington Hospital Center.
Amirshahi warns that a hot dog can be particularly dangerous when cut up in the popular fashion of diagonal blocks.
“Cut them long ways — into much smaller narrow pieces because they can make it down the airway a little bit easier,” Amirshahi advised.
Other home safety tips from Amirshahi to help keep your family safe include:
- Secure medicines well. Heart, blood pressure, sedatives and pain medications can be “one pill killers” of children.
- Beware button batteries. Children who ingest them can be disabled or killed by severe caustic burns to the esophagus.
- Keep electronic cigarette supplies away from children. The liquid in a single cartridge has enough nicotine to kill a small child.
- Gas space heaters that malfunction can poison an entire family. Check carbon monoxide and smoke detector batteries in the fall and spring.
- To avoid swimming pool hazards, learn CPR, how to swim and keep within an arm’s reach of children in the pool. Drowning is the leading cause of accidental death for children 1 to 4 years old.
Parents whose children are hurt or injured tend to blame themselves in Amirshahi’s experience.
“It’s fear (about whether) their child is going to be OK, and No. 2 — what could they have done differently,” Amirshahi said.
