Balloons - festive but dangerous! |06 December 2017

Children love to play with balloons and balloons are often used on birthday and on other festive parties involving children.

But latex balloons are associated with choking and suffocation hazard and can be dangerous for children under 8 years old to play with.

Balloons cause more choking deaths in children than any other non-food related product.

Never give balloons to children younger than 8 years old. A child who is blowing up or chewing on balloon can choke by inhaling the balloon.

Children under the age of 4 are especially exposed to choking injuries because they put things in their mouths. Children under 4 years have narrow windpipes that easily can get blocked by a deflated balloon or of a piece of a balloon.

The fragments from a popped balloon are a choking hazard if the child chew or suck the rubber into their mouths to make bubbles.

Deflated balloons are also a choking hazard and it is recommended out of safety that adults inflate balloons.

Even a string that is longer than 22 cm and attached to a balloon can be a strangulation hazard!  There is a risk that the child gets the string around her/his neck and get strangled.

Ensure that the string is shorter than 22 cm.

If you want to use balloons, use big Mylar balloons instead, children cannot accidentally inhale a big piece of Mylar and when a Mylar balloon burst they don’t generally create small fragments.

Don’t let children inhale Helium from balloons! The danger occurs when the helium is inhaled into a child's lungs thereby depriving them of oxygen supply. If the child mostly breathe helium, it can suffocate the child.

Always supervise children when there are balloons around!

Balloons are not only dangerous for children, balloons are also dangerous to sea turtles!

Never leave balloons on the beach, clean up all balloons inflated and deflated and pick also up all fragments of popped balloons. 

A balloon can look like food to a hungry sea turtle. Once ingested, the plastic items can cause a variety of issues. Digestive tracts can become blocked, which can lead to starvation and death. Over 100 million marine animals die each year due to marine debris, according to the Sea Turtle Conservancy.

Visit Playtime Seychelles website www.ipa-playtime-seychelles.org and download our safety publications for free on Safety Corner publications.

Contributed by Playtime Seychelles