If your child swallowed 1 or 2 pieces, give them a few sips of water. If your child swallowed a large amount of gum, they may experience vomiting, constipation, abdominal bloating and pain or changes in bowel habits. Call IPC at 1-800-222-1222 if your child starts experiencing symptoms.
Although chewing gum is designed to be chewed and not swallowed, it generally isn't harmful if swallowed. Folklore suggests that swallowed gum sits in your stomach for seven years before it can be digested. But this isn't true.
Though your stomach can't break down a piece of gum the same way it breaks down other food, your digestive systemcan move it along through normal intestinal activity. In other words, it comes out the other end when you have a bowel movement (poop).
What happens if you swallow gum while pregnant? Although it is not recommended to swallow gum, mistakenly swallowing a piece of gum should not harm you or your baby. The gum will travel through your digestive system and get excreted in your stool just as it would if you were not pregnant.
Swallowing one piece of gum probably won't hurt you, but beyond that, be careful. Czerwony says swallowing a lot of gum in a short period of time — say, one piece a day for a week, or a mega-wad consisting of four pieces of gum at a time — can put your digestive system in danger.
Chewing Gum Facts
Chewing gum takes up to 5 years to biodegrade.
In rare cases, swallowing a large mass of gum, or many small pieces of gum over a short period of time, can block the digestive tract. Blockages are more likely to happen when gum is swallowed along with other indigestible things (like sunflower seed shells).
What's more, the American Academy of Pediatrics now considers gum a choking hazard for children younger than age 5.
The American Academy of Pediatrics warns that younger kids have a tendency to swallow gum and that doing so has the potential to cause serious problems. To be on the safe side, the recommended age for allowing a child to chew gum is 4 years old.
Even though swallowing gum may be harmless to your digestive tract, gum isn't always kind to your stomach. The additive sorbitol, which is used in sugarless gum, can cause diarrhea and abdominal pain. If you swallow large quantities of sugarless gum, it might lead to nausea, diarrhea, and headaches.
Chewing gum increases your saliva production, a key component to good oral health. A healthy flow of saliva helps wash away harmful sugars and food particles. This prevents bad bacteria from growing inside the mouth and therefore, protects the teeth from decay.
While chewing gum is not intended to be swallowed, it presents no greater risk of choking than any other food. As with any food product, chewing gum, in exceptional circumstances, can present a risk of choking for children and even adults.
If your child swallowed a tooth, don't worry much, it should digest within 24 to 48 hours. For emergency dental care, contact Brenham Family Dental at 979-421-9685.
Foods: Hot dogs (especially cut into a coin shape), meats, sausages, and fish with bones. Popcorn, chips, pretzel nuggets, and snack foods. Candy (especially hard or sticky candy), cough drops, gum, lollipops, marshmallows, caramels, hard candies, and jelly beans.
The risk of choking from swallowing gum is not zero, but it's pretty small. For most adolescents, teenagers, and adults it would be difficult to have the gum completely block the trachea (windpipe, where air flows into and out of the lungs).
The accurate analysis of Literature shows that cases of choking by chewing-gum are very rare [3][4]: Njau described a fatality resulted from the partial obstruction of the extent of the trachea [3] ; the study of Haftoura et al.
Most of the chewing gum made today is made using gum base, which includes a mixture of polymers, plasticisers and resins, and mixed together with food-grade softeners, preservatives, sweeteners, colours and flavourings.
The main base of chewing gum is water insoluble and it can't be digested by human gut enzymes.
Put chewing gum and bubble gum in your black cart as garbage.
It's okay to let your child enjoy a piece of gum every now and then, but the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends waiting until the child is old enough to understand not to swallow the gum. It's around age 5 that a child can start to understand the concept of chewing something without swallowing it.
Rapid, noisy, or high-pitched breathing. Increased drooling. Trouble swallowing, pain when swallowing, or complete inability to swallow. Gagging.
So it might be a surprise that chewing gum contains plastic. The ingredient know as “gum base” in the list of ingredients in chewing gum is largely made of polyvinyl acetate.
This one is a little variable since the textures in fruit snacks and gummies can vary widely. If the are softer and easier to chew, like Annies fruit snacks, these are likely fine at age 2. If they are at all chewy and hard, like traditional gummy bears, I would wait until 3 or 4.
M&M's with peanuts/almonds/any nuts, lemon heads, gum balls, round hard mints, and pretty much ANY hard candy are a choking hazard. If it does not dissolve quickly once it hits saliva, don't give it to your child. Children love “gummy” candy of any kind, and now there are all these fruit snacks available.