Raising Children Network: the Australian parenting website
  • Suitable for 0-6Years

Foreign objects

By Raising Children Network
 
 
It's not unusual for toddlers to poke things into their own – or another child's – nose or ear. Babies and toddlers are most likely to do this between the ages of nine months and three years. Sometimes things can get stuck and cause irritation and infections.
  • Toddlers love to poke things up noses and in ears.
  • Food is a popular thing to poke – keep an eye on small children while they’re eating.
  • Talk to your doctor if you think your child has something stuck in a nostril, eye or ear.
If you think your child has something stuck in his nose, eye, ear or any other body opening, seek medical advice, rather than trying to remove the object yourself, which might cause further injury.

Tips for preventing foreign objects being swallowed, inhaled or inserted

  • Stay with small children while they eat food.
  • Wait until children are three or four years of age before allowing them to eat small lollies, even as a treat.
  • If an object is smaller than a D-size battery, avoid letting a child under three play with it.
  • Avoid glitter, glue and beadwork, and toys with brittle, breakable surfaces, such as pottery.
  • Tell siblings that baby’s ears and nose are delicate – not for poking things into.
  • Sand or polish any rough, splintery timberwork – on old furniture or veranda rails, for instance – that your child might come into contact with.
  • Check the floor for beads, pieces of jewellery, dried peas and other small objects.

Signs that a child has a foreign object somewhere

If it's his nose, he might:
  • complain of pain, or itchiness
  • have a smelly discharge from one nostril
  • bleed from the nose
  • have bad breath.

If it's his ear, he can have:

  • earache – although some objects placed in the ear may not cause symptoms
  • redness
  • discharge
  • reduced hearing.

If it's his eye, he might: 

  • complain that something is in his eye
  • have pain in the eye
  • have a weeping eye
  • have pain when he looks at a light
  • blink excessively or rub his eye.

Although children rarely stick things in their eyes on purpose, they can accidentally poke themselves or rub foreign substances into their eyes. Things are most commonly trapped in the conjuctiva, between the eyeball and the eyelid.

 
 
 
 
  • Last reviewed04-05-2006
  • References

    Uyemura, M.C. (2005). Foreign body ingestion in children. American Family Physician, 72, 287-291.

    Walikeh, G., Wylie, R., Kay, M. (2002). Foreign body ingestion in infants and children: Location, location, location. Clinical Pediatrics, 41(9), 633-640.