Public awareness is one of the best options to mitigate against pediatric food choking.
Children under age 5 could choke on grapes and similarly-shaped foods, and parents should cut them in half or quarters to reduce the risk, Scottish doctors say.
Although some parents may know to cut food such as grapes, cherry tomatoes and hot dogs into smaller pieces, not all do. Public health officials should spread the message more, they wrote in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
“This message continually appears but doesn’t seem to take hold,” said Jamie Cooper, study author and emergency medicine consultant at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in Scotland.