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- Airway and breathing-related injuries occur less frequently than other injury causes, but are often fatal.
- Choking is defined as blockage of the airway due to round food products such as candies, nuts, grapes and also non-food products such as undersized pacifiers, small toys, and latex balloons. Suffocation is often defined as death due to oxygen deprivation from external causes like plastic bags, entrapment in sealed containers (i.e. toy chest) and spaces.
- Strangulation is death due to lack of oxygen from pressure on the trachea from items like clothing drawstrings, crib bars, window blinds and drapery cords. It is the leading cause of deaths on playgrounds.
- Choking occurs most commonly on food and small attractive products, including uninflated balloons, coins, buttons, small toy parts, round and cylinder food pieces and inedibles in food products.
- In England and Wales, 61 children died in a two year period due to choking, strangulation or suffocation, with the majority being boys, under 3 years of age. A further 5,000 children aged 15 or under were brought to accident and emergency units in the United Kingdom because of choking, with the majority of these injuries occurring in the home.
- Studies in Greece, Germany and Israel all confirm that food products containing inedibles are inherently unsafe and that labelling is not an adequate protection. It is estimated that 2,000 injuries occur annually in the European Union due to inedibles in food products alone.
- It has been identified that four main product characteristics should be considered when evaluating products for safety: size/diameter, compressibility, flexibility and configuration.
- Children placed in adult beds are at increased risk for airway obstruction injury. In the United States for example since 1990 at least 296 children aged 2 and under have died in adult beds as a result of entrapment in the bed structure. Additionally, 209 children in this age group died in adult beds from smothering as a result of being covered by another person’s body. During this same time at least 57 children, nearly all aged 3 and under, have died due to entrapment in bunk beds alone.
- The total annual cost of airway obstruction injury among children ages 14 and under in the United States is nearly $3.7 billion. Children aged 4 and under account for more than 78 percent of these costs.
This information has been taken from the Fact sheet on Child choking, Strangulation and Suffocation published by the Alliance in October 2006. This fact sheet including the references to the information above is available here
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