Doctors remove fish bone from respiratory tract of Kerala toddler

A fish bone, which got embedded in the respiratory track of a 3-year-old baby girl causing breathlessness for about two months, was removed by doctors at a government hospital in Thiruvananthapuram in a surgical procedure.

The child, Arushi, has been discharged from the SAT Hospital, part of the Government Medical College, where the procedure was performed on August 16, hospital sources said. 

The parents said since the past two months the child had been suffering from breathlessness. Though she was taken to various hospitals in Kollam and in the state capital, she did not get any relief. 

The parents then brought her to the SAT Hospital where an x-ray examination revealed that there was some obstruction in her respiratory track. A team of doctors then performed bronchoscopy under anaesthesia and identified the obstruction as fish bone and removed it, relieving the child of the breathing trouble.

'The big fish bone had blocked almost 50 per cent of the trachea (wind pipe). There was inflammation of the respiratory track due to which it had to be carefully removed', hospital sources said. Arushi used to take food on her own and would have inadvertently swallowed the fish bone, they added.

• Toddler
• Respiratory tract
• Fish bone