The child put a bead in his nose: what to do, first aid

Childhood is the right time for research and experimentation. But there is no way to do without incidents. If a child puts a bead in his nose, what should parents do? We will devote an article to the answer to this question - we will tell you in detail what to do if your baby has a foreign body in his nose.

What can be a foreign body?

The main problem with us is that the child put a small object in his nose. The latter may be in the baby's sinus and not through his fault - an insect has flown in, a playmate has “tried”. All foreign objects are divided here into two large categories:

• Organic origin. These are pieces of solid food (fruits, vegetables, cookies, etc.) and whole objects (nuts, seeds, vitamins, sweets and berries). This also includes insects, with something decided to visit the baby's nose.
• Inorganic origin. The child stuck a bead, a button, a detail from a designer or a toy in his nose. Some children may “lodge” a fleece, button, paper clip, pebble, coin, pieces of paper, and other unexpected objects.

Not always the problem arises due to the fact that the child put something on his nose specifically. A foreign object in the sinuses is also a result of trauma, a fall. It may be pebbles, broken glass and nasal bones. Such a case is very dangerous - this can easily injure internal organs due to a streamlined shape.

How does a foreign body enter the nasal cavity?

The child put a bead in his nose (what to do in this case, we will describe later) - this is not the only way for a foreign object to enter the sinuses. The probabilities here are divided into external and internal.

External routes of entry are as follows:

• The child, as we already said, put an object in his nose. Or a friend helped him.
• A foreign body remains in the nose after medical procedures performed by inattentive doctors. These are pieces of cotton wool, bandage.
• An insect flew into the nose.
• A child on the street accidentally inhaled fluff, dust, particles of wool.

External routes of entry are:

• The child choked on food. With increased coughing, food particles through the choans may well enter the nasal cavity.
• The child vomited. Part of the vomit may be the same way in the nose.

Foreign bodies classification

Yes, it turns out, not so simple. Suppose a child puts a ball, a vitamin, a bead, and a designer detail in his nose. According to the time spent in the sinuses, these foreign bodies will be divided into several groups:

• Spicy. Those that recently appeared in the nose - a few minutes or hours ago.
• Chronic Those foreign bodies that have been in the sinuses for a long time - days and even months.
• Rhinoliths. The second name is nasal stones. So they call objects that are inside the olfactory organ for a long time. Most often, they are overgrown with connective tissue. The latter is formed due to damage to the mucous membrane and the resulting inflammation.

Defining symptoms

Did the child put a foreign body in his nose? It’s good if one of the adults noticed this or the kid himself told about the incident. But what if the child is not yet talking, or simply forgot about what happened, did not pay attention to it? In addition, some children may knowingly hide the misconduct, fearing punishment from their parents.

The difficulty is that the symptoms of the presence of a foreign body in the nose are too similar to the signs of rhinitis or chronic runny nose. Therefore, it is difficult for a non-specialist to guess what happened.

We list the most common symptoms:

• Labored breathing.
• The child complains of itching in the area of ​​the clogged sinus, rubs this place with a pen.
• Sneezing is frequent, sometimes paroxysmal.
• Watery copious discharge "runs" from the nose. Sometimes they show blood streaks.
• Nosebleeds. They are characteristic of the case when a foreign body has damaged the mucous membrane.
• The child complains of pain in the nose, is naughty, crying. When touching the sinuses, he shows that he is unpleasant and painful.

Effects

Some parents are quite careless about this incident - they believe that the child will sooner or later blow a foreign object, or that the latter will come out of the sinus independently. However, this is a serious misconception.

The child put a bead in his nose. The consequences of the incident are as follows:

• Breathing promotes the passage of a foreign object deep into the sinus. If the bead is small, then it can further pass into the oropharynx, and then into the trachea. In the best case, the baby swallows her, and she further "travels" along his gastrointestinal tract. In the worst case, it may completely or partially block the airways. A small object is completely capable of "failing" in the bronchi.
• A foreign body, in contrast, can become stuck in the sinus. This causes inflammation of the mucous membranes. Further, as we have said, the formation of a nasal stone. It is already removed only surgically, since the bead will be overgrown with connective tissue. In addition, if a foreign object is sharp, it injures the mucous membranes, which causes bleeding. An infection with all the ensuing consequences can get into the resulting wound.

How to distinguish an acute stage from a cold?

There are still a number of signs that will help the parent distinguish the case when the child stuck an object in his nose from ordinary rhinitis. Below we list the most common.

• If a foreign body enters, the symptoms will appear only on the part of the affected sinus (unless, of course, the child put the beads in both nostrils, which, fortunately, is quite rare). Thus, watery discharge will flow from one nostril, while with a runny nose this process is bilateral.
• Sudden manifestation. As a rule, rhinitis does not develop for no reason - it will be the result of a walk through puddles, a large portion of ice cream, wallowing in the snow, and so on. If a foreign body enters the nose, symptoms develop for no apparent reason.
• The absence of other signs of the disease. Rhinitis is not only sneezing, discharge from the nose. The patient complains of general malaise, weakness, headache, body aches, fever and so on. If a foreign body enters, there are, of course, no such symptoms.

If you have any suspicions that the child put a bead in his nose, but did not get a cold, you should definitely share doubts with the pediatrician.

How to distinguish chronic stage from sinusitis?

If the foreign body is in the sinus long enough, the symptoms will be similar to signs of sinusitis or chronic rhinitis. The child has the following:

• Difficult nasal breathing. Moreover, specifically from the side where the foreign body is enclosed.
• Characteristic discharge periodically comes out of the sinus - purulent, purulent-sucrose (that is, with blood streaks). Differ in an unpleasant smell.
• Purulent crusts periodically form in the child’s nose. This is a consequence of inflammation of the mucous membrane due to a foreign body.

Rhinolitis (nasal stone) is characterized by similar symptoms. Children, first of all, complain that it is difficult for them to breathe with their spouts. As a rule, a nasal calculus is discovered by chance - during preventive medical examinations.

The child put a bead in his nose: what to do?

Let us now consider a different case. You saw how a child put a bead or other foreign object into his sock. Or the latter is seen in the baby's sinuses. What to do in such cases?

The specialist-otolaryngologist (ENT doctor) will help the child. The doctor is engaged not only in the treatment of diseases of the upper respiratory tract, but also in the extraction of foreign objects from the sinuses. What to do if a child puts a bead in his nose? Immediately consult an ENT doctor in your children's clinic!

If the incident happened on a weekend, holiday, too early or too late, then the solution is to come to the emergency room of the nearest children's hospital.

An otolaryngologist on duty (a pediatrician on duty, if you go to the hospital) will examine the baby's nasal cavity for the presence of a foreign body in it. The procedure is called rhinoscopy. This is an examination of the internal cavities of the olfactory organ using a special nasal mirror. The procedure is completely painless.

If the doctor could not see the bead using a nasal mirror, then the baby will be assigned an additional examination - an X-ray or an ultrasound. Fortunately, this is rarely resorted to.

Home help for a child

So, you know that the child stuck a bead in his nose. What to do? If you clearly see a foreign object in his sinus, the bead itself has not rolled up, then before contacting a specialist, you can try to remove it yourself.

Follow this simple instruction:

1. Ask your child to blow their nose. To do this, he should pinch an empty nostril with his finger, tilt his head slightly down and forward, and exhale air from himself with force. Inhale it back with the mouth.
2. Dig in the baby's nasal drops to narrow the vessels. These are "Naphthyzine", "Nazol", "Tizin", "Nazivin", "Adrianol", "Otrivin".
3. If the baby is too small and does not know how to sniff out, cause him to sneeze - let him smell a little black or red pepper. While sneezing, pinch his empty sinus with his finger.
4. For young children, there is another way. Put the child on your lap face to face. Pinch his empty nostril with his finger. After that, sharply inhale the air in your mouth (as with emergency care - mouth-to-mouth breathing). Repeat the procedure until the peas fall out of the nose.
5. If these methods do not help, then ask the child to breathe through the mouth before providing medical care. This will prevent the foreign body from moving deeper into the nose, as well as swallowing it, getting into the trachea and bronchi.

We advise you to start the independent removal of a foreign body from the baby’s nose only when he is older than 5 years. Children at this age can already clearly follow the instructions, they are easy to reassure. Kids also need the help of an experienced otolaryngologist.

This cannot be done!

If you want to help your child yourself, do not perform the following incorrect actions:

• Do not try to get a bead yourself! No hands, no tweezers, no cotton swab, no hook. With these actions, you only push the foreign body deeper, damage the mucous membrane, which is fraught with inflammation, infection.
• Do not rinse the baby’s nose with water or any saline solution. This also contributes to the advancement of a foreign object deep into the sinus.
• Do not press on the wing of the nose from the side of being in the bosom of the bead.
• Do not feed or drink the baby until medical attention is given to it.

Specialists help

How do otolaryngologists remove a foreign body from the nose? Doctors use several methods:

1. Apply vasoconstrictor nasal drops, a solution containing adrenaline. The patient is then asked to blow his nose on his own.
2. If the attempt is unsuccessful, then the doctors turn to local anesthesia with lidocaine (in extreme cases - to anesthesia). Depending on the nature of the foreign body, it is removed using special tweezers or a nasal hook.
3. If rhinolitis is detected, a serious internal trauma, then they resort to surgical intervention.

Did the child put a foreign object in his nose? This is an incident that requires immediate assistance to the baby! Now you know what to do in such a situation.