Maia Mi

Maia swallowed a 5p coin on Saturday night. I know, I know what you're thinking, what was she doing with a 5p piece? and there's no excuse because I was with her. But she often plays with coins and likes to put them in and out of containers. Usually I only let her play with really enormous ones (like the old 50p pieces and some foreign large coins) but she'd found this one in the bathroom....and she was finished with her bath and fiddling with it. Next thing I was changing her nappy and I didn't realise she had it in her hand and suddenly it dropped into her throat. She choked and I hurriedly swung her round to do a heimlich maneouvre, when she suddenly stopped choking and looked at me most surprised. She'd swallowed it!

She seemed totally fine after that and it was only when I phoned NHS Direct once she was in bed that I discovered it could still be really dangerous and still be lodged in her throat & get back up to her windpipe! I slept next to her on a mattress really nervously and woke at her every breath. She was fine though. So now we're hoping it's come out the other end or will soon. But we'll probably have to go to the hospital to have her xrayed or metal detected (!) if we don't see any signs of it as it could be stuck somewhere, in her appendix or somewhere!

Just so glad she seems ok & that she didn't actually choke. My mum told me that a 2 year old girl she' known had died from choking on a coin. From now on I'm not letting Maia near anything small, it's really woken me up to the danger... even if she doesn't put things in her mouth on purpose, it can always be accidental....