How do you keep your baby from choking?

My baby is 6 months old, and has no teeth. My dr said it was ok to start on table food if I wanted to. I'm scared to give her anything that's chunky, because she doesn't have any teeth. How do I know when she's ready? How do I keep her from choking?

How do you keep your baby from choking?
She isn't ready for table food unless she is already accustomed to chewing or at least mashing food with her gums.You don't want to just start putting the food off your plate onto hers. I suggest first making her oatmeal or rice cereal lumpier and giving her the third foods that have little pieces of food. This way she will get used to the ideal that she has to "work" on her food and not just swallow it down. Give her Biter Biscuits, Zwieback Toasts, and/or the cereal puffs. If she can eat these snacks with no problem, she should do fine with table foods. Of course you want to make sure that the pieces you give her a small and soft.


Watch her closely as she eats, babies can be silent chokers. An open mouth with a tongue sticking out is an indication that she has something stuck in her throat that she is trying to get out.
Reply:Do you use your front teeth to chew food? Even babies with their front teeth don't use them to chew food. Babies don't have their molars, so they use their gums to mash up their food. Give her some of what you're eating (avoiding foods that are highly allergenic), and let her have at it.





We never used baby food here, but gave our son whatever we were eating.





"Pureed baby food is 'unnatural'





She said children should be fed only with breast or formula milk for six months, then weaned onto solids to improve control over how much they ate.





This could prevent babies becoming picky about food.





[...]





Solids best





After six months, Mrs Rapley said babies were capable of taking food into their mouths and chewing it.





Therefore, feeding them pureed food at this time could delay the development of chewing skills.





Instead, she said, they should be given milk and solid pieces of food which they could chew.





Mrs Rapley argued that babies fed pureed food had little control over how much food they ate, thus rendering them vulnerable to constipation, and running a risk that they would react by becoming fussy eaters later in life.





She blamed the food industry for convincing parents that they should give children pureed food.





She said: "Sound scientific research and government advice now agree that there is no longer any window of a baby's development in which they need something more than milk and less than solids."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/676279...
Reply:She's most likely ready when she's sitting up on her own and reaching out and grabbing for food and putting it in her mouth.





We never used any baby food at all, and just let baby feed herself from the get-go. She hasn't even gagged in the slightest. Just use common sense and close supervision. You will likely become very confident, very quickly -- if not, hold off a bit and start again later.





"Many parents worry about babies choking. However, there is good reason to believe that babies are at less risk of choking if they are in control of what goes into their mouth than if they are spoon fed. This is because babies are not capable of intentionally moving food to the back of their throats until after they have learnt to chew. And they do not develop the ability to chew until after they have developed the ability to reach out and grab things. Thus, a very young baby cannot easily put himself at risk because he cannot get the food into his mouth in the first place. On the other hand, the action used to suck food off a spoon tends to take the food straight to the back of the mouth, causing the baby to gag. This means that spoon feeding has its own potential to lead to choking – and makes one wonder about the safety of giving lumpy foods off a spoon.





It appears that a baby's general development keeps pace with the development of his ability to manage food in his mouth, and to digest it. A baby who is struggling to get food into his mouth is probably not quite ready to eat it. It is important to resist the temptation to 'help' the baby in these circumstances since his own developmental abilities are what ensure that weaning takes place at the right pace for him. This process is also what helps to keep him safe from choking on small pieces of food, since, if he is not yet able to pick up small objects using his finger and thumb, he will not be able to get, for example, a pea or a raisin into his mouth. Once he is able to do this, he will almost certainly have developed the necessary oral skills to deal with it. Putting foods into a baby's mouth for him overrides this natural protection and may increase the risk of choking."





http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintro...





Also of interest: "Experts seek to debunk baby food myths


Little evidence supports ‘any particular way of doing things’"





http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9646449/
Reply:Do NOT give table food at 6mths just because everyone says or the dr. says. First start out with stage 1 abby foods, then stage 2. See how she is with that first before table foods.





My daugther ate baby foods around 7 mth and higher but only very little and in the beginning she gagged on it. So I took it slow. Very little bites, dont fill the entire spoon. Only give her 1-2 tablespoons a day until she gets better with the foods swallowing reflex. She is only used to swallowing from a bottle and it is different.





Always keep her elevated in a high chair, etc, never lay her down and keep her elevated 15 min after the feeding.
Reply:It is scary I know. Start with pureed foods and then gradually increase the texture to lumpy and then to more solid but still soft. Make sure you know what to do if she is choking and hope you never need to use it. My baby is 7 1/2 months. I have started to increase the lumps, sometimes she is fine and other times she gags a bit, sometimes she refuses to it eat. Just keep trying but start out slowly to be safe.
Reply:wow! who is your doctor?!


i wouldn't give her any food food until she was a little bit older (like stuff that she would need to chew). have you been feeding her rice cereal and baby food?


i would try that first.


you know they are ready for table food and stuff when they start reaching for your plate and trying to feed themselves when you feed them. you also want to make sure that she can sit alone and when you try to feed her, she doesn't push the food out with her tongue. if she does, she isn't ready.


remember, easy does it!!! she won't choke, she'll push it out if she isn't ready for it.


make sure she is always sitting up, too, when you feed her.


good luck!


**
Reply:When you start foods, it should be a progression, no matter what the age. Start with thin purees, then thicker one, then add chunks and finally table food. The child should be able to handle each texture before moving on to the nest.





If you want to do food with texture, try ripe banana in very small pieces. If your child chokes, then calmly place her over your legs stomach side down and gently but firmly give her a blow to the back. I know blow to the back sounds harsh, but that is what they call it in CPR training. Obviously you aren't looking to hurt her, just enough to jar the food loose, then you do a finger sweep to remove any food in the back of the mouth. This is something every mother should know how to do.
Reply:keep smoke away from them and keep them away from strong things and always hold there heads and if u put on perfume don't lay them on your chest cause they can have a stroke



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