Easter is just around the corner and that means Easter eggs, chocolate bunnies and hot cross buns.
But one Aussie paramedic has shared a warning over the Easter foods which are and aren’t safe for your little ones, and it might surprise you.
Nikki Jurcutz has built up a name and a social media following for herself over the years for her parenting courses and program, Tiny Hearts Education.
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First on the list of foods which you should be wary of is the cult family favourite, Cream Eggs.
While they are able to be squished and so can fit down tiny airways, they are also sticky on the inside — making them difficult for kids to swallow.
Next up, Nikki banned marshmallows — because they have a “sticky consistency and the shape and size can block children’s airways”.
Other foods that Nikki recommends you prohibit include tiny Easter eggs, because their “shape and size can block the airway” and they are “hard and difficult to chew”.
Hot cross buns are something you should be wary of, Nikki added, as “sultanas are a choking hazard and soft bread tends to soften and stick together forming a sticky clump”.
If you’re looking for a good hot cross bun, Nikki said you should “make sure to choose buns without small, dried fruits and that toasting the buns can make them easier to choose”.
Finally, Nikki bans chocolate eggs with nuts which are a big no due to “the whole nuts inside the chocolate which can be a choking hazard as they are hard not squishable”.
On the other side of the fence, she said there are some foods which don’t pose a risk.
These include large hollow Easter eggs, which can be squished and are very soft to eat and can be broken into smaller pieces.
Hollow chocolate bunnies are a safe option in the same way, as they are able to be squished and can also be broken into a smaller size.
People in the comments praised the post and agreed with the paramedic, thanking her for sharing the information.
“So, what you’re essentially saying is as parents we have to eat our kids Easter treats. For their safety of course,” laughed one.
“I love this page so much,” added another.
“This is so good to know,” said a third.
Nikki recently revealed the one food that is the biggest choking hazard for kids — and how to prepare it so it’s safer for children to eat.
She posted a video about the potential danger of feeding young children hot dogs, which cause more choking deaths than any other food.
“If you were to design a perfect plug for a child’s airway you couldn’t do much better than a hot dog,” part of the video is captioned.
“Learn how you can minimise the risk just by changing the way you prep the food.”
Illustrating with a clear tube representing a child’s airway, she showed how easily hotdogs, if consumed whole or sliced into circular discs, could get blocked and stuck.
But if hotdogs are sliced along their length, they are made much narrower, and consequently present less of a choking hazard.
Jurcutz went on to illustrate how the hotdog sliced lengthwise leaves more space for the food to go down without getting blocked in a child’s airway, once again using the clear tube to illustrate.
“Even if it gets into the airway, it does not completely occlude it,” she says.
Followers of Tiny Hearts Foundation thanked Jurcutz for the potentially life-saving advice.
“Thank you for this tip,” one parent wrote.
“This is good to know,” said another.
Some said they would never feed their children hot dogs in the first place, but others said this was missing the point.
“Omg some of these comments,” one frustrated person wrote.
“I mean, it’s good to know, but she’s not promoting this as healthy food.
“She’s showing ways to avoid choking to those that CHOOSE to feed this to their babies.”
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