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Parenting

13th Mar 2017

Dad’s safety warning for parents who use dummies after choking incident

Amanda Cassidy

My daughter wouldn’t be here now if this happened in the middle of the night”

A father’s warning to other parents who use dummies after an incident in which his baby daughter turned blue when the soother fell apart.

Earl Wilson posted the warning on his Facebook page – pleading with mums and dads to be vigilant.


He also posted a picture of the soother made by the popular baby brand, Tommee Tippee. It shows how the teat had separated from the plastic shell.

The company told the Mail Online:

The safety and wellbeing of babies is at the heart of absolutely everything we do, so we’re taking this extremely seriously. We’re going to investigate this thoroughly, and have already spoken to Earl’s wife, Sam, to arrange to get the soother back so we can examine it. We would like to reassure parents that all of our products comply with strict European safety standards. However, like all other soother manufacturers, we always advise parents to pull the soother in all directions and look for bite marks before every single use, and throw away at the first signs of damage or weakness. Anyone with any questions or concerns about our soothers can contact us via our Facebook page or via our Careline 0500 97 98 99.’

Earl says that “if it wasn’t for my wife’s quick thinking I’d hate to think what would (have) happened. My daughter turned blue and Sam had to remove the teat from her throat.”

My own children all had soothers and I found them great for settling them as babies. Now, my two-year-old bites into her soother and we have to throw them away. It is certainly something I will now have to reconsider – especially in light of this parents experience and others.

What do you think about soothers? Do you think they should be stopped once the child gets teeth? 

Topics:

soother