Injury Prevention

Supporting Information

Play and sleeping areas should be kept free of small objects such as buttons, beads, coins, seeds and nuts.

Very young children should not be given groundnuts (peanuts), hard sweets, or food with small bones or seeds.

Young children should always be supervised during meals. Cut or tear children's food into small pieces.

Coughing, gagging and high-pitched, noisy breathing or the inability to make any sound at all indicate breathing difficulty and possible choking. Choking is a life-threatening emergency. Caregivers should suspect an infant is choking when he or she suddenly has trouble breathing, even if no one has seen the child put something into the mouth. (See First Aid for Choking.)