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What to do when small children choke? Baby Journey, together with Länsförsäkringar, has produced this guide where midwife and CPR expert Maria Midstam goes through how to help children based on three different scenarios, as well as giving you all the valuable information and guidance to be able to handle the situation.

Many parents' nightmare scenario is that their child will choke. If this happens, it will be unpleasant, but with enough knowledge of how to handle the situation, you may find some comfort if it does happen. In some cases, you may need to perform CPR.

In this article, we look at three different scenarios and how to deal with them: if your child is choking but coughing, awake and breathing on their own. If the baby chokes and can't cough or make a sound - then you need to act quickly. And finally, if the child chokes and cannot breathe and becomes unconscious.

Here you can read about CPR for children under 1 year old.

Scenario 1: The child chokes but coughs, is awake and breathing on its own.

1. Pick up the child and have them sit on your lap or stand in front of you. Encourage the child to continue coughing and praise the child for doing a good job of coughing.

2. Look in the child's mouth if you can see any loose object. If you do, ask the child to spit it out. Encourage the child to continue coughing as long as there is something in the throat.

3. stay calm, the child will feel less stress and anxiety in the situation.

Scenario 2: Child chokes but cannot cough or make a sound: Act quickly!

1. stand behind the baby so that your stomach touches the baby's back and place your clenched fist in the area between the baby's sternum and navel. With your hand, push the baby towards you once. You can use your other hand as a support to hold the baby.

2. move on to doing back thumps. Place your palm on the area between the child's shoulder blades. Do five relatively quick pushes to the back in a forward, slightly upward direction.

3. continue to alternate these two different maneuvers until the child coughs up a loose object or can breathe freely and calmly again. Important! You cannot push too hard.

4. If the child loses consciousness, raise the alarm immediately and call 112.

Scenario 3: Child choking, not breathing and acting unconscious: Perform CPR

1. check that the child is awake. You can shake their shoulders and address them by name and/or ask them some questions.

2. If you don't get a response, bend over the child and put your cheek against the child's mouth and nose so that your gaze is directed towards the child's chest. Note if you feel the baby's breath against your cheek or if you hear the baby breathing. Look over the chest to see if it rises and falls.

3. If the child is not breathing, immediately call 112 for help and guidance by phone.

4. move on to doing CPR with breaths and compressions. You alternate 2 breaths and 15 compressions.

5. Make sure the head is in an upright position. Hold the baby's nose with your fingers and place your mouth over the baby's mouth. Get some air before you blow in and blow 2 breaths, so that each breath is for about 1-2 seconds. As you do this, watch for the chest to rise and fall between each breath.

6. Start the compressions by using your hand cuff, which you place over the chest between the baby's nipples with a straight arm. In principle, you can't push too hard, and you will experience resistance so that you have to use your weight and strength to do the compressions.

7. you alternate 15 compressions which should be at a fast pace, between 100-120 compressions per minute. Important! Do not place your hand over the sternum protruding at the ribs when performing the compressions.

8. Alternate inflations and compressions until help is in place.

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