What happens if a child eats sand?

2024-08-23 07:56:00, Shëndeti CNA

Children can be taken to the beach even when they are very young as long as they avoid the hottest hours, from 10am to 4.30pm. However, we must remember that that giant expanse of sand is a completely new environment for them, which they will want to explore and dig deeper. To do this, they will use what is the vehicle of knowledge, the mouth. Therefore it is not uncommon for a few grains of sand to be swallowed to understand what that element is that they have never seen before.

But what happens if a child eats sand?

Let's immediately try to calm our fears, in most cases, children eat such a small amount that it does not cause them any harm. This is also clarified by the Veronesi Foundation. The problem is that on the beach, unfortunately, there is not only sand.

When we go on vacation to the seashore, our feet sink into a layer that consists mainly of fragments of rocks and skeletons or shells, all turned into dust by a long process of erosion.

But along our shores, as we now unfortunately know, there are objects that are certainly not part of the ecosystem. Among them are cigarette butts (according to Legambiente, the most common waste of all), food and other food packaging, plastic pieces of different sizes such as corks or bottle caps, parts of fallen food and so on.

Finally, more natural, but equally dangerous to health, are the droppings of dogs, cats and other animals that may have trampled the area during the night. In all these cases, the possibility of infection increases.

Possible infections

It is therefore the presence of foreign bodies and specific infectious microorganisms that make sand ingestion potentially dangerous. Meeting germs and bacteria is not necessarily a negative episode, as it contributes to the education and strengthening of the child's immune system, which will detect new threats against which the necessary defenses will be developed.

However, you should pay attention to what the little one puts in his mouth, because some elements, such as food waste, can create more dangerous bacteria, such as salmonella.

And again, animal feces can contain Escherichia Coli, a microorganism that causes gastroenteritis, but also urinary tract infections and that can have serious consequences in patients with an immune system that is not yet fully trained.

Finally, toxoplasmosis transmitted by cats, which usually causes only a slight swelling of the lymph nodes, but, again, can be very dangerous in case of low protection.

The possibility that the child swallows an object whose size does not allow passage through the intestines and therefore causes an obstruction or internal damage should not be neglected.

In short, the problem is not so much sand, but everything that can be found in it. How to prevent your child from eating sand

Using an alarming tone and trying to scare the child to prevent him from putting grains of sand in his mouth can be counterproductive. For him, it remains an important channel of exploration of the outside world and is a mechanism that should not be completely inhibited. Better to react calmly. It also helps to lay out a beach towel where he can gather his favorite toys to distract him from the unfamiliar environment around him. It's certainly not easy to ignore!/ Adapted from CNA