I often get calls and e-mails, “Help, my child is choking on their food.” My heart races as I continue reading and listening, as I recall in great detail each of the three times my own children have choked. Despite my training and experience my hands and body trembled as I performed the Heimlich maneuver on my own child! We never want to be in that position. However, it is a scary reality many caregivers and parents will face while our children learn to manage difficult foods. The good news is, there are many things we can do to decrease our child’s risk of choking. The University of Michigan: Michigan Medicine is a wonderful resource for parents and caregivers looking for ideas of reducing the risk of choking; “Choking Prevention” can be found at their website.
What I don’t hear is “Help! My child is coughing!” There are 2 main reasons I don’t hear this, 1 reason, parents aren’t concerned about coughing during mealtimes, (We should be!) or on the other end of the spectrum parents are so concerned with their child’s coughing it is reported as “Help my child is choking!”. Let’s differentiate between Coughing and Choking. Coughing is loud, we can breathe. BREATHING IS GOOD, right? Coughing is a way to protect our airway from food or liquid entering our lungs. Choking is silent, we can’t breath our airway is obstructed and we need immediate help! Why is coughing good? Why should we tell our kids, good job keep coughing? Because, coughing is protecting their lungs from an actual choking episode! Our airways are always open. Our vocal folds sit like a "V" on top of our airway. When we swallow that "V" turns into an "I" and closes off our airway. When something wrong happens, “water goes down the wrong pipe”, we cough. Our vocal folds are saying, “Hey, I’m about to open back up and breathe. *cough *cough. Hey! *cough *cough There is something on me! Get it off. *cough *cough If you don’t its going to go into your lungs!” Finally the water was coughed up, and is off the vocal folds. The vocal folds say “ahhh, I can breathe again.”
In Summary, coughing is good, chocking is bad. Right?
Wrong. Coughing is not always “good” it can cause a variety of mealtime and feeding issues and can be a sign of disordered swallowing.
Lets work together to make mealtimes enjoyable again! If you are concerned about your child’s eating abilities Take Home Speech LLC can help. I offer onsite evaluations, consultations and continuing treatment when needed for children and adolescents who have feeding difficulties.
