Mum-of-three Kahla Hilton has warned about the dangers of teething beads in a Facebook post that has since gone viral.
The 37-year-old mum, from New South Wales, Australia, took to social media to share the 'scariest experience' of her life with other parents, as she felt she had an 'obligation' to do so as a 'Mother, Aunty and friend of many with kids'.
'I had an experience yesterday that I'm calling the scariest of my life. I was out to lunch with a girlfriend, we'd just ordered, and were sitting, talking as we normally would. I had Lukah in her pram next to me, and she was munching on a Rusk quite happily. Or so I thought', she wrote in the post.
https://www.facebook.com/KAHLA.J/posts/10157165923513238
'I turned to look at her and noticed she had something in her mouth, and at first thought it was the end of her dummy chain, which she often chews on... until I remembered she didn't have her dummy chain on. About a split second later I realised that it was a bead from her teething garland, which has been hanging across her pram for months for her to chew on. I quickly put my finger in the side of her mouth and got the bead out, and then I saw that she had another bead in there, half way down her throat. I started to panic, she was choking, and I froze.
'As she went from pink, to red, to blue, I screamed at the top of my lungs for someone to help. People rushed from every direction of the cafe and a couple of them attempted to help. The cafe owner called emergency services as I continued to scream like an absolute crazy person. My baby was going to die, that's all I could think about.'
Thankfully there was someone around who heard Kahla screaming and performed life-saving first aid on her baby.
'My loud screaming got the attention of people throughout the mall, including one man, who ran across the carpark, jumped through the open window, scooped Lukah up and had her in a downward position and giving her blows to the back within what seemed like half a second. This man, was ex military, and he saved my baby's life. I owe him everything', she said, before admitting that she recently attended a baby first aid course a few weeks ago and still couldn't help her baby.
The mum then goes on to explain that while she doesn't blame anyone for the incident, she won't trust anything made with teething beads again and urges parents to be careful with these products.
'Everything made with teething beads has been thrown out. And I highly recommend all parents consider doing the same. If you've ever purchased one of these products, you'll notice that they all mention the safety procedures they've been made under, which is there to makes parents feel comfortable, but if you read further, you'll notice in most cases there's also a disclaimer, that no responsibility will be taken in the case of injury or death.
'In this instance, we were lucky. Lukah definitely had a guardian angel watching over her yesterday. I would hate to hear of this happening to anyone else, especially if the outcome is worse. Be safe. Get rid of them, or give them a good check over if you want to continue using them.'
