Chapter 10 - For The Safety of Canadian Children And Youth

Chapter 10

Choking and Suffocation

HIGHLIGHTS

Statistics Canada data reveal close to a 10-fold decrease in the number of deaths among Canadian children and youth due to choking and suffocation since the 1950s. The categories showing the most dramatic decreases (among the categories for which comparisons over the years were possible) were choking on food (94% decrease), choking on other objects (50% decrease) and unintentional suffocation in a bed or cradle (91% decrease).

Between 1990 and 1992, the leading causes of unintentional death due to choking and suffocation were, in descending order of frequency, unintentional hanging, choking on objects other than food, choking on food, and suffocation in a bed or cradle (Statistics Canada).

Data from the Product Safety Bureau of Health Canada shed some light on the circumstances surrounding some deaths associated with beds. The Accidental Death System (ADS) includes 47 deaths associated with cribs between 1982 and 1995. Most of the cribs involved in the fatal injuries would not have met present standards, having poorly fitting mattresses or widely spaced bars. Other deaths were associated with mattress supports or crib sides that were broken or in poor condition.

Beds other than cribs were also associated with death by asphyxiation or strangulation. Beds with guardrails, such as bunk beds and some youth beds, were associated with strangulation, which often occurred when the child's body slid between the bottom rail and the mattress or between vertical rails, such that the head became trapped. Entrapment can also occur between an upper bunk and the wall, typically when there is no guardrail on the side of the bunk next to the wall (product safety ADS).

Canadian data indicate that between 1982 and 1995, at least 6 Canadian children aged 2 to 9 years died of suffocation by balloons. (ADS, coroners' and medical examiners' databases in two provinces; see also Ryan et al article in American Journal of Disease in Children).

CHAPTER 10
Choking and Suffocation