Choking, is one of those horrible subjects. As soon as you start to feed your baby you think about it. Why did they bring up all that milk? Then you start weaning and they physically gag at you, and then "lumps" and you think life will never get any better.

This is when crawling appears and you find yourself scanning the floor for every little thing so that your baby won't put it in their mouth. You want everything to be big and chunky so that there is no possible way your baby can get it further than their lips.

With my older son, a passionate Lego and Playmobil boy, I was very nervous when Charlotte was on the move and that she would put a nice red piece of plastic in her mouth - thankfully she never did.

Here are some tips on how to minimise the risk

• Try to keep small items such as coins, screws, small toys and batteries out of reach of small children
• never leave your baby alone with a feeding bottle, toddlers can choke on a piece of food so always supervise meals or snacks.
• supervise young children in the garden to avoid eating berries, fungi and leaves. If it is not a favourite plant, remove those that have berries on them, they are often the holly bushes which have sharp leaves as well.

Your Comments

We had just returned from a trip to the fair where my son(3.5years) had won a bow and arrow set with suction cup ends, all of a sudden he started waving his arms arround and grasping his throat, he wasnt making any noise so i knew it must have been completly blocking his airway, my partner had tried slapping his back to no avail so i picked him up , tipped him upside down on my forearm ( as you would a choking baby) and slapped him hard on the back, this worked and he spat the suction cup out, I'm glad i tried the forearm technique before trying thrusts ( which can cause injury)lucky for me i'm strong an d had o trouble holding my son this way , I imagine not everyone would be able to do this but in an emergency adrenaline will always help and is not to be underestimated, hope this helps someone someday, I am so glad it worked for me as I may not have had my son alive today.

Alice