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Solids Nearly Cost My Infant's Life. My Advice For Every BLW Mom.

If you're starting solids with your little one, take three minutes to read this. It could save your child's life.

By Anna Griffith Mother of three. ATL, GA.

My daughter was seven months old the first time it happened.

Pear. Half of one, skin on, core out, soft enough that I could squish it between two fingers. She had been gnawing at it for a minute when a piece came loose in her mouth and her face went red. Then she went quiet.

I had watched the videos. I could have passed a test on it. Gagging is loud. Gagging pushes food forward. Choking is silent.

She was silent, and started turning purple.

I sat there with both hands on the tray and I did not move.

Then I moved. I snatched her out of the chair, laid her face down along my forearm, and started back blows between the shoulder blades with the heel of my hand, exactly the way I was taught. One, two, three, four, five.

Nothing.

I felt sick. I flipped her over and gave five chest thrusts with two fingers on her breastbone. Her face had gone purple and she had a look on it I will never get out of my head. I turned her back over and did five more back blows, harder than I thought I could ever hit a baby. On the fourth one the chunk came out of her mouth and she started screaming.

We went to the ER. She was fine. I was not.

I got home around two in the morning and started reading, and what I found made it worse.

A 2024 study in the journal Resuscitation looked at real choking emergencies and found that bystander first aid failed to clear the airway close to one time in four. When the object was still stuck by the time paramedics arrived, more than four in ten of those people died.

It took me three rounds to get that pear out of my daughter. I have not stopped thinking about the version of that night where it took four.

You think you're prepared until you find out you're not

Take the infant CPR class. Take it before you start solids, not after. I had taken mine and it is the only reason my daughter is here.

Then plan for the part nobody tells you about, which is that you can run it perfectly and still watch it fail.

I did everything right. It almost wasn't enough.

What I did that night, in order

WHAT I DID THAT NIGHT, IN ORDER

1. I checked whether she could cough. She couldn't. No cough, no cry, no sound at all. That is the difference between gagging and choking and it is the only thing you need to see.

2. Back blows. Face down along my forearm, head lower than her chest, her jaw held in my hand. Five firm blows between the shoulder blades with the heel of my other hand.

3. Chest thrusts. Turned her face up, two fingers on the breastbone just below the nipple line, five quick presses.

4. Back to blows, and keep going. Five and five until it comes out. It took me three rounds. My husband was on the phone with 911 the whole time.

Screenshot this. Then go take an infant CPR class, because reading it and doing it with shaking hands are two different things.

You have probably seen the anti-choking devices in the ads. I had, and I scrolled past every single one of them, because I had taken the class and I thought that was enough.

After that night I ordered three different ones. I wanted to know which one I would actually be able to use with a purple baby in my arms. What I found surprised me.

Most anti choking devices have a fatal flaw

Two of the three work like a plunger. You push a bellows down and yank it back up, and the yank is what makes the suction. On paper that is fine.

Here is what happened when I tried it. The handle is stiff. Pulling it takes one hand and holding the mask sealed on her face takes the other, and the pull lasts long enough that she has time to turn her head. I could not keep a seal on my own daughter sitting calm on the kitchen floor. I went and read the reviews on both of them afterward and found the same complaint over and over.

The third one was AirwayClear. It runs on a spring inside a cylinder instead of a bellows. You seal the mask over the nose and mouth and press one button, and the spring does the pull for you. It happens in an instant, so you are not fighting the device and your child at the same time. Same pull every time, whether your hands are steady or not.

AirwayClear 2.0

What comes in the home kit:

1x AirwayClear 2.0 device
3x masks (adult, child, and one for practice)
3x tongue depressors
1 year warranty
60 day money-back guarantee

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It's the last step, not the first one

It doesn't replace the back blows. Coughing first. Back blows and chest thrusts second.

AirwayClear is what I reach for on the round where those haven't worked yet, because all it takes is the one night they don't.

I'd rather have it and not need it than the other way around

I hear mothers say they're fine without one because they know CPR. That was me for seven months.

If you're still reading this you're probably the same kind of mother I am, which means you would rather be ready than find out. We keep one in the kitchen and one in the diaper bag. Mine has never come out of the box, and I hope yours never does either.

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