Foreign body of the respiratory tract. Foreign bodies in the airways Intake with a foreign body in the airways

Situations in which a foreign body can enter the respiratory tract are not uncommon. Active communication and laughter during meals, hasty absorption of food with poor chewing, alcohol intoxication are the most common causes of such cases in adults.

But even more often cases of foreign objects entering the respiratory tract occur with children (more than 90%). They like to take small objects in their mouths, spin around, talk, laugh and play while eating.

Sometimes it is enough for the victim to cough quickly enough to clear the airways. But if the coughing fits continue, the person begins to grab his throat, cannot breathe, his face, which at first turned red, begins to turn pale, and then turn blue - emergency care is required. Delay threatens his life and health. It is necessary to immediately call an ambulance and take urgent measures to free the airways before the arrival of doctors.

Removal of a foreign body from the respiratory tract using the Heimlich maneuver

In children

Signs: The victim is suffocating, unable to speak, suddenly becomes bluish, may lose consciousness. Often children inhale parts of toys, nuts, sweets.

In adults

In pregnant women or obese victims (it is impossible or impossible to give thrusts to the abdomen).

If the victim has lost consciousness, call an ambulance and proceed with cardiopulmonary resuscitation. It is carried out only on a hard surface.

Continue resuscitation until medical personnel arrive or until spontaneous breathing is restored.

After restoring breathing, give the victim a stable lateral position. Ensure constant breath control until the arrival of an ambulance!

Everyone knows that it is better to prevent injuries or diseases than to be treated later and suffer from their consequences. To avoid getting into the respiratory tract of foreign bodies does not require much effort. It is enough to follow a few simple rules:

• do not rush to eat and chew food thoroughly;
• while eating, do not be distracted by conversations, disputes and showdown - violent emotions, laughter and sudden movements with a full mouth can end with Heimlich techniques;
• do not eat lying down, on the go on the street, in transport, especially while driving;
• to wean children and not to keep foreign objects in their mouths: pen caps, coins, buttons, batteries, and the like.

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One of the most critical pathologies that anyone can encounter is a foreign body in the airways. Emergency assistance in these situations should be provided instantly - in the first seconds. Certain maneuvers that everyone can master can save the life of an adult and a child if they are applied immediately.

At times more often this pathology develops in patients of childhood. This is due to the peculiarities of the behavior of babies - while eating, they tend to play, talk, laugh or cry, cough. In addition, children very often take various small objects into their mouths, which they can then accidentally inhale. The anatomical features of the oral cavity and the underdevelopment of protective reflexes in children also contribute to an increase in cases of aspiration (inhalation) of foreign bodies (FB) in young patients.

Adults most often suffer from this pathology when greedily absorbing food without chewing it, or when actively talking while eating. Another "aggravating circumstance" is alcohol intoxication, which reduces the activity of the nerve centers responsible for protective reflexes.

Symptoms of a foreign body in the airways

A feature of this pathology is that most often it occurs during meals. This is important information that suggests that a person loses consciousness precisely due to a foreign body, and not, for example, a heart attack (although this is also possible).

The clinical picture of a foreign body goes through three stages in its development:

• initial stage, in which there is a sudden strong paroxysmal cough, lacrimation, redness of the face;
• development- the cough becomes stronger, there is practically no breathing, although the patient makes respiratory movements, cyanosis appears around the lips;
• final stage, during which breathing stops, the person loses consciousness, after a short time, cardiac arrest is observed, followed by clinical death.

How to recognize a foreign body in the airways by external signs

The moment when a foreign body enters the respiratory tract looks like this:

• suddenly the person stops talking, laughing, screaming or crying, grabs his throat with his hands;
• there is a strong cough, the victim stops answering questions;
• when the victim tries to inhale, either wheezing is heard, or nothing is heard; the victim opens his mouth wide, but cannot inhale;
• the face, initially reddening, quickly becomes pale, and then acquires a bluish color, especially in the region of the upper lip);
• within a few tens of seconds, there is a loss of consciousness due to respiratory arrest;
• in a very short time, the work of the heart stops and clinical death occurs.

First aid for foreign bodies in the respiratory tract

A person who knows how to recognize this pathology will not waste a second. The situation is developing rapidly and delaying first aid can cost the victim his life.

The algorithm of actions for this pathology is as follows:

1. Address the victim with the question “What happened?” You may look stupid, but in reality this question is needed in order to understand whether a person is breathing at least somehow. Your further tactics will depend on this.
2. If a person is somehow breathing, encourage him with the words “Cough, harder, more, come on” - with any words that “break through” to his consciousness. Often this is enough for a small foreign body that has entered the upper respiratory tract to come out on its own.
3. If spontaneous release of IT did not occur within 30 seconds, or if the person did not breathe from the very beginning, then the Heimlich maneuver should be applied.

Heimlich maneuver

The technique for doing it is as follows:

• Stand behind the victim.
• Grasp his torso with both hands, cover the fist of your right hand with the palm of your left hand, and use the knuckle of your right thumb to press five hard pressures on the upper abdomen. The direction is up and towards you. Restoration of breathing is a sign of removal of a foreign body from their airways.

Note: The Heimlich maneuver should be performed until the FB leaves the airway or until the person is unconscious. In the latter case, attempts to remove the foreign body should be stopped, and instead start.

Features of the Heimlich maneuver in children and pregnant women

When extracting a foreign body in the respiratory tract in children under 1 year old, the rescuer should sit down, put the child on the left forearm face down, holding the lower jaw of the baby with fingers folded into a “claw”. The head of the child should be below the level of the body. After that, five medium-strength blows should be applied with the base of the palm to the interscapular region of the back. The second stage - the child turns face up on the right forearm, after the forehead, the rescuer makes five jerky movements along the sternum to a point located 1 finger below the inter-nipple line. Don't push too hard to break the ribs.

If a foreign body has appeared in the oropharynx, it is visible and can be removed without the danger of pushing it back - it is removed. If not, the whole cycle is repeated either until IT appears, or until cardiac arrest, after which cardiopulmonary resuscitation should be started.

In children aged 1-8 years, the Heimlich maneuver is performed by placing the child on the rescuer's thigh. The rest of the actions are performed according to the general rules.

You will receive more detailed information about emergency care for a child when a foreign body enters the respiratory tract by watching a video review by a pediatrician, Dr. Komarovsky:

Common Mistakes in Airway Foreign Body Removal

The first thing that comes to mind when a foreign body enters the respiratory tract is to knock on the back. The correct algorithm for how to knock is described above. However, most of us just pound on the back with all our might. The danger of this method is that gravity acts on any foreign body. Incorrect tapping may cause IT to penetrate lower into the tracheobronchial tree and may cause complete airway obstruction. First aid in this case is to carry out a tracheotomy, and even if by some miracle a qualified specialist turns out to be nearby, the chance of saving the victim will become scanty.

Never turn your baby upside down to shake him. Spasm of the larynx reduces your attempts to remove a foreign body to zero. Instead, you can dislocate the baby's cervical vertebrae. The fact is that when a child loses consciousness, the tone of the neck muscles drops, while shaking, his head begins to dangle in all directions, which can lead to dislocation of the cervical vertebrae and even their fracture. Saving a baby from death, you risk making him disabled or even killed.

Such an extremely unpleasant situation as a foreign object entering the respiratory tract (nasopharynx, larynx) occurs quite often. It is more likely to occur in children under 5 years of age. It is at this age that he actively learns the world around him, using not only his hands, but also his mouth. There is also the possibility that a small object can simply be inhaled by the child.

At an older age, the ingress of a foreign body into the respiratory tract occurs during games, jokes, eating too fast, and/or unsuccessful experiments. How to behave in such a situation, how to help the victim, and what first signs you should pay attention to, we will consider in this article.

Main symptoms

Depending on the size of a foreign object in the airways, it is able to completely or partially close them, blocking the access of oxygen to the lungs. In addition, a foreign body can injure the larynx, vocal cords, causing inflammation and swelling, thereby worsening the situation. With a partial variant, breathing will be heavy, difficult and intermittent. Sometimes a person can take a breath, but instead of exhaling there will be a creak or whistle. The most dangerous situation is when a foreign object completely blocks the breathing process, blocking the lumen of both bronchi at once. In this case, the risk of death is high.

How to understand that the cause of suffocation is precisely a foreign body, and not a strong allergic reaction, for example?

Signs of a foreign body in the airways

1. Abrupt and sudden change in behavior. Movement becomes chaotic. A person, as a rule, grabs his throat and loses the ability to speak.
2. Redness of the skin of the face, enlargement of the veins in the neck
3. Cough as an attempt by the body to get rid of an object
4. Breathing is difficult. When you inhale, you can hear strong wheezing
5. Due to a sharp lack of oxygen, the skin above the upper lip may acquire a bluish tint.
6. Rapid loss of consciousness

Such symptoms are characteristic of the active phase with complete blockage of the airways, if the object has stopped in the larynx or trachea. The disease develops rapidly, and assistance should be provided as quickly and efficiently as possible.

If a small object, with a sharp breath or cough, passed through the larynx and got stuck in the bronchi, then the first sharp external symptoms may be absent, or appear from time to time. In this case, a sluggish inflammatory process occurs, which may be accompanied by: fever, short-term bouts of asphyxia, coughing, shortness of breath, vomiting. It is possible to determine the cause only with the help of x-rays.

It should be remembered that with improper assistance, you can move the foreign object inward, and thus only worsen the condition of the victim.

Foreign body in the airways and first aid

The Heimlich maneuver is a miraculous method developed by the American physician Henry Judah Heimlich in 1974. This is a method of assisting the victim, used to quickly free the person's respiratory tract from foreign objects or food debris. The reception is based on creating pressure in the abdominal cavity of the victim's abdomen, which allows you to push the foreign body out of the oropharynx. This method is discussed in more detail in the presented video.

The article is for informational purposes, you perform all actions at your own peril and risk, remember that no one has canceled the qualified assistance of specialists!

Very useful video, watching it, you can save someone's life!

A foreign body can get into the area of ​​​​the entrance to the larynx during a deep breath or when swallowing a large piece of food, when laughing or coughing while eating. Incomplete occlusion of the airways at the level of the larynx is accompanied by irritation of the mucous membrane, which is manifested by coughing, hoarseness or loss of voice, difficulty in intermittent (stridor) breathing.

When coughing, the foreign body can be removed from the respiratory tract and normal breathing can be restored. If this does not happen, then in the event of a complete blockage of the lumen of the respiratory tract (asphyxia), pulmonary ventilation stops, the face turns blue, brain hypoxia rapidly increases. The victim loses consciousness, falls, there is no breathing.

First aid for a foreign body in the respiratory tract

First aid is to quickly create high pressure in the respiratory system below the obstruction, in the hope of pushing the foreign body into the esophagus or oral cavity.

What to do if you choke?

Embrace yourself with your hands at the level of the upper abdomen and squeeze strongly, while trying to push the foreign body out of the larynx with a cough.

What to do if a person chokes in your presence?

If someone choked in your presence, then help in this case will depend on the presence of consciousness in the victim. If a person is conscious, you can help him by inflicting a few short, strong blows in the interscapular region.If this approach fails, apply Heimlich method (≈ Heimlich): approach the victim from behind, clasp him with folded arms at the level of the upper abdomen and jerkily squeeze the chest in the direction from the bottom up. The Heimlich method provides a rapid increase in pressure in the chest cavity, which, in some cases, helps to push the foreign body out of the upper respiratory tract.

If the victim is unconscious:

I way. At lay on your back. With hands folded in the epigastric region (upper abdomen), make several strong pushes in the direction from the bottom up.

II way. The victim is laid with his stomach on a bent knee, his head hangs down. Strongly beat with a fist between the shoulder blades. If it is ineffective, they press the knee on the stomach several times, while squeezing the hand from above, from the back.

What to do if a child chokes?

If a child chokesthe first years of life, the Heimlich method (≈ Heimlich) is not used because of the risk of chest injury. Children up to a year are taken by the legs, preferably by the hips, head down and shaken vigorously. Older than a year, sliding tapping movements in the back area are used. At the same time, the chest and stomach of the child lie on the rescuer's left hand, the head and upper part of the body are lowered down.

In any case, emergency medical assistance is needed, even if the foreign body is removed and the victim feels well. A foreign body or its fragments can migrate to the bronchi, usually to the right one, as the most vertically located, with the development of severe pneumonia, atelectasis.