Mom says the child nearly died after accidentally eating a laundry capsule: "We were very lucky"

A toddler from Rhode Island who still suffers from breathing problems nearly two years after accidentally swallowing a laundry capsule is lucky to be alive, said his mother, after spending three days in intensive care. in the hospital.

"I knew it was bad, but I did not know how bad it was," said Katelyn Cunha Flores, Cotter Cunha's mother, at SWNS. "He was having trouble breathing and his condition was deteriorating very quickly. They took him to emergency surgery and managed to intubate him, using a very narrow tube normally used for smaller babies. "

Flores said she was doing the laundry in July 2017 before the family's trip to New Hampshire to celebrate July 4th when Cotter, 1 year old, was playing at her feet. She said that when she turned her back on the bag for a moment, she heard her son scream.

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"I turned around to see what was wrong and saw that his hands were covered with something," said the 30-year-old at the press briefing. "That's when I noticed the plastic of the capsule coming out of his mouth."

"It was the most terrible night of my life."

– Katelyn Cunha Flores

Laundry detergent packages can be thrown directly into the washing machine without having to measure the right amount of liquid, but pose a risk to young children, according to Nationwide Children's Hospital. The hospital describes packs as "the perfect size and shape to be picked up" by toddlers, who can then put them in their mouths.

Flores said that the convenience of the packages did not outweigh the damage they could cause.

"Colorful packages can also look like candy or juice to a young child," according to the hospital. "Any type of detergent can be harmful, but the chemicals in the laundry detergent pouches are particularly concentrated. Children who swallow these chemicals have difficulty breathing, have fallen into a coma and have had other serious health problems. There were even some deaths. Touching chemicals can cause burns and other injuries. "

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Health organizations and medical groups have long warned about the dangers of these products, especially the risks they pose to young children. A 2016 study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recorded 62,254 calls from US poison control centers between 2013 and 2014 for unintentional exposure to laundry detergent or dishwashers involving children under the age of 6 years. Children under 3 accounted for the majority of calls.

Flores said she immediately put Cotter in the car and went to the Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence, where he had been admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit. She added that an endoscopy had revealed that the detergent had burned parts of her esophagus and the top of the lining of her stomach. She told SWNS that Cotter had coded the first night at the hospital and that she "did not think that he would get out of it."

"It was the most terrible night of my life," she told SWNS.

After three days of resuscitation, Cotter began to show signs of improvement and he was extubated, but doctors are not certain of the long-term consequences of his injuries. Flores said that during his hospitalization, doctors discovered that he was suffering from a birth defect that gave him a different shape.

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"When he gets sick or coughs, it's a very hard cough," she told SWNS. "It looks like he's croupy. He also has a nebulizer.

Flores warns other parents of the potentially fatal consequences of using pods and insists that "there is absolutely no need to use them".

"We were very lucky," she told SWNS.