Baby Gags on Solid Food at 10 Months
Gagging is a natural protective reflex that results in the contraction of the dorsum of the throat to protect u.s. from choking. Simply like the reflexive kick that occurs when the doctor taps your knee in only the right spot, the gag happens automatically, initiating a rhythmic bottom-upwards contraction of your throat (the tube that leads to your tum) to help in bringing food up and to stop the swallowing reflex from making our bodies endeavour to swallow.
Just starting solids? Have a wait at our virtual grade on starting solids as well equally our guides and recipes on for the best starting time foods for baby. And if y'all are struggling with the transition from spoon feeding / purees to self-feeding with table nutrient, lookout our Spoons to Fingers video.
Annotation: This folio has been created with typically developing infants and children in mind. The information hither is generalized for a broad audience and is for informational purposes only. If your kid has underlying medical or developmental differences, including just not limited to prematurity, developmental delay, hypotonia, airway differences, chromosomal abnormalities, craniofacial anomalies, gastrointestinal differences, cardiopulmonary disease, or neurological differences, we strongly recommend you discuss your kid's feeding plan with the child's physician, wellness care provider or therapy team. The opinions, advice, suggestions and information presented in this commodity on gagging are for informational purposes just and are non a substitute for professional person communication from or consultation with your pediatric medical or health professional.If your child is having a wellness emergency, please call 911 or your emergency medical resource provider immediately.
How is choking different from gagging?
First, it is important to distinguish the departure between gagging and choking.
Truthful choking is when the airway is obstructed, and the baby is having problem breathing. Signs of a baby choking can include:
- disability to cry
- difficulty breathing
- pare tugging into the chest
- wait of terror
- loftier-pitched sounds
- pare color changes (ranging from blue to imperial to ashen-similar)
If you doubtable baby is choking, immediately administer babe choking first assist with alternating back blows and breast thrusts and call nine-i-one or local emergency services on speakerphone so your hands are free. If another person is present, 1 person should immediately perform choking first aid while the other calls for assist. Deport age-appropriate CPR if you lot believe infant's airway is open up, merely the child is non breathing.
On the other hand, gagging is a common protective reflex that results in the contraction of the dorsum of the throat. It is a natural function and protects u.s.a. from choking. When this happens, information technology'due south of import to let babe work the food frontward on their own. Refrain from sticking your finger in babe'due south mouth, which can push the object further down the throat, making the situation worse.
We strongly recommend you take a CPR course online or at your local health facility and review safety procedures. Our choking, gagging & infant rescue video tin also assist you visualize the difference. Further resources:
- American Red Cantankerous: Kid & Baby CPR
- American Middle Association: Baby CPR Preparation Kits
- Harvard Wellness: Heimlich Maneuver on an Infant
Babies gagging on food is normal
Gagging is a completely normal reflex in infants, children and adults alike. Gagging is very common and will happen a lot in babe's solid food journey. All babies gag in their eating journey—it'south one way they acquire how to swallow. The good news is that babies typically outgrow gagging afterward a couple of months of practice with various textured foods.
Babies often gag well before they start solids, when breast or bottle feeding. This typically occurs when baby either isn't properly latched, and the nipple triggers the reflex, or if the infant isn't prepare to swallow milk for whatever reason. Some babies gag when mom's letdown is too fast. Others gag when they need to catch their breath instead of swallowing. Many babies will gag on a pacifier or certain canteen nipples if they aren't familiar with them. All of these gags occur because the brain is trying to protect the baby from swallowing an "intruder," or something the baby isn't ready to swallow. This gag reflex typically lessens over the first few months of baby's life when baby gets "desensitized" and learns to take it (pacifier, nipple, or food texture) without gagging. This occasional gagging at a young historic period does not seem to bother most infants.
Interestingly, the gag reflex of a 6- to ten-month-old baby is much more sensitive and can exist triggered more forward on the natural language than an developed. 1 2 This is why babies gag hands: the more forrad the gag trigger is on the tongue, the easier information technology is to trigger. 3 It is not uncommon for babies to gag (and occasionally vomit) for the first few weeks of solids. If baby repeatedly gags and vomits past the offset month of starting solids, consult your pediatrician, who may refer you lot to a swallowing specialist.
Watch our video on gagging and all of the other normal, sometimes nerve-wracking things babies do while starting solids.
Gagging helps prevent choking
When the gag reflex is triggered, it forces the back of the throat to close, substantially preventing swallowing. If food caused babe to gag, the reflex forces the food (or object) forward towards the front of the tongue. Young infants naturally open their lips when they gag, which ways that typically, the food or object that acquired the gag keeps moving out of the oral fissure.
Gagging is completely normal and incredibly of import for baby'south safe, both at the table and away from it.
Gagging helps babies learn to eat
For babies to build the skills for chewing and managing all foods (not just easy-to-chew foods), we need to give them opportunities to make mistakes, like taking a likewise-big bite of food. When a babe bites off too much food and cannot properly motion it around to chew, the gag reflex volition kick in and help thrust the food forrad. The feel teaches babe that the nutrient was too big to swallow. These experiences are essential for learning and edifice conviction in biting and tearing. Over time, infant will learn to take smaller bites and get more than good at moving food effectually to chew properly.
In one case baby is a few weeks into their solid food journey, you can use the gag reflex to your advantage. Offering foods that are non every bit piece of cake to chew to assistance advance infant's oral development more quickly. When poorly chewed food touches the natural language, the gag reflex will exercise its chore, and baby will learn they need to chew the nutrient more than.
Information technology's important to claiming babyearlier they become besides accustomed to mashes and soft foods. Babies quickly larn that chewing and swallowing mashes and other easy-to-chew foods hands satisfies their hunger with minimal work. Many babies won't bother trying to improve their skills with tough consistencies that crave more than bitter and tearing, and may refuse the challenging foods and expect for the easier foods.
Why is my baby gagging? Gagging is easily triggered
When it comes to young babies, the gag reflex is pretty easy to trigger. Touch the middle of the tongue, and many babies volition gag. If yous sentry a three- to four-calendar month-one-time baby mouthing their hands and fingers, you volition encounter them gagging themselves frequently. This is common and normal. Babies are typically non bothered by information technology and will frequently keep doing information technology.
Our mouths are ane of the most sensitive parts of our bodies. The human oral fissure has many sensory receptors to detect touch on, taste, temperature, pressure, and other input types. Babies are driven to explore with their mouths to acquire nigh their globe just because the mouth is sensitive. Mouthing exploration could be very dangerous if babies didn't take gagging equally a natural prophylactic net.
Importantly, young infants have immature hand and finger coordination, which means they tin't easily remove something they put in their mouth. They also have immature oral motor (tongue and oral cavity) coordination. They tin can't easily use their tongue to find an object in their oral cavity and spit information technology out. This is another reason the gag reflex is a rubber reflex, equally it allows a babe to put an object in their mouth and and so push it back out again without letting it get close to the pharynx. As babies put things in their mouth, the gag reflex tells them when things are not supposed to be there and prevents it from moving likewise far back towards the throat.
The gag reflex moves further dorsum in the rima oris as babies historic period
From birth to effectually 7-9 months, the gag reflex is triggered shut to the front of the mouth (around the eye of the tongue). At this age, the gag reflex is as sensitive every bit it will always exist. iv This is important for rubber because objects (nutrient or anything else) will speedily trigger the gag reflex and be pushed out of the mouth before they get by the middle of the tongue.
Sometime effectually vii-12 months of age, the gag reflex slowly desensitizes. The gag trigger moves from the center of the natural language to the back of the tongue towards the throat. 5 At this bespeak, nutrient or objects can get much closer to the throat before the body recognizes something is as well large to swallow and tries to push it dorsum out. This might sound scary, just recall, our bodies are amazing! The gag reflex remains active and strong, and then if something (food, barbie shoe, bug, etc.) hits the back of the tongue, the back of the palate (roof of the oral cavity), or even the back of the throat, the gag nonetheless kicks in.
Babies gag on puréed nutrient and jarred baby food, besides
The threshold for what triggers a gag and the gag's intensity is different in every baby, but most infants will go through a menstruum where anything in their mouth thicker than breast milk or formula will crusade a gag. The brain says: "Wait, this isn't correct! I shouldn't eat this! GAG!" Many volition gag with spoon-feeding experiences even with runny, watery bland purées.
Until the special 24-hour interval you decide to start solids, baby hasn't had to manage anything simply a watery-sparse, fast-moving liquid. Enter something slightly thicker, slippery, and a dissimilar flavor — baby'south brain will kick in with protective mechanisms to gag and prevent swallowing this invading purée. This is usually curt-lived because sparse purées are quite like to liquids and the texture won't trigger a gag for very long.
Babies know to push the tongue against a breast or bottle nipple to initiate suction and motion the liquid backward to their pharynx. Spoon-feeding can present unique oral-motor challenges. With a spoonful of purée dropped on the centre of the natural language, baby has nil to suck or push against and doesn't notwithstanding know the skills to aid motion that food backward. Because they can't movement the purée backward speedily, it either continues to sit down on the middle of the natural language or will offset spreading effectually the mouth, which can lead to gagging. Many wise babies will suck on the spoon to help them quickly move the purée dorsum to swallow, just like they do from a bottle or breast. Those babies, who now have a way to control the purée, will often easily swallow with minimal or no gagging.
While non all babies who are spoon-fed gag, many do. Not surprisingly, when a baby is exclusively spoon-fed for a prolonged flow of fourth dimension (past 8 months of age, for example), that child may gag more when they start finger foods due to the lack of texture exposure.
Spoon-fed babies gag less at first only gag more after
When a infant is started on solids with thin, watery purées and pouches, the babe's natural language receives less sensory input. While babies gag on purées too, they acclimate to the smooth texture or figure out how to employ the spoon to suck back and eat, which reduces gagging. However,allbabies volition frequently go through gagging periods when introduced to finger foods — whether 6-month-olds or older spoon-fed babies. When baby is first offered finger foods, the encephalon engages the safe call: "This doesn't seem right! I don't know how to motion this! Nosotros shouldn't eat this food!" Frequently, this period of gagging will last longer with babies who started with spoon-feeding. 6
In 2016, the "Bliss" study plant that babies who follow a spoon-feeding approach to solids (spoon feeding smooth purées > lumpy purées > finger foods) tend to gag less at 6 months but more at eight months and later. 7 Remember: around viii months, a infant'due south gag reflex becomes less sensitive and moves further in the back of the oral cavity. This ways that nutrient is closer to the throat before the torso reacts and tries to push button information technology out. 8 In other words, waiting to introduce finger foods until subsequently baby is viii or 9 months old mayincrease the choking chance as the gag reflex is less sensitive, farther back in the oral cavity, and baby is not accustomed to textures other than soft foods from a spoon.
Past 8-9 months old, a spoon-fed baby has been practicing a very specific skill to swallow. "Purées come up into my mouth. I suck or lift my tongue to movement that puréed nutrient backward, and I swallow it." Babies will always start with the skill they know and attempt to use that same pattern on solid foods. They try to move that solid nutrient directly back without the necessary footstep of moving the foodlaterally to their gums to chew. This motor blueprint often leads to even more than gagging.
The older the infant, the more aware they are of gagging and its unpleasantness. A ix-month-old baby is more than aware of gagging than a 6-month-old baby. "Hebbian plasticity"—a fancy term that brain specialists use—tells usa that neurons that fire together wire together. This means that when one office of the brain lights upwards simultaneously as some other function of the brain, the brain starts to build a connection between those two areas. And then, frequently gagging as the baby gets older and more than aware of their torso may exist problematic for some babies who seem to draw a connection between real nutrient and gagging. These babies seem to learn quickly that real food will make them gag and tin can pb to refusal of any food that is not a purée or mash. By contrast, younger infants don't seem afflicted as much as older babies and toddlers.
Babe-led weaning and gagging
At 6 months erstwhile, the gag reflex is necessary to exploring food. It's what allows a young baby with near zip chewing skills to put a slice of food in their oral cavity and, if it is too big to swallow, get that food safely back out.
Infants learn how to exercise amazing things—sitting, itch, walking, and running—by using reflexes, fumbling around, and making lots of mistakes while slowly building strength and adding 1 move on top of some other. The same applies when learning to chew—babies utilize reflexes coupled with fumbling as they acquire.
Amazingly, babies take two other key reflexes—the biting reflex and the tongue lateralization reflex— which assist them learn to chew right abroad at half dozen months. For foods to be properly chewed, baby needs to:
- Take a bite.
- Move that food to the side (tongue lateralization).
- Munch upward and down to intermission down the nutrient downwardly.
- Motion the food back to the tongue for swallowing.
When babies start offset finger food, they will struggle to utilize their biting and lateralization reflexes in whatsoever coordinated fashion. Simply put, they fumble around! As babies learn to eat, they won't suspension downwardly nutrient enough to safely consume, which requires the gag reflex to button the unchewed nutrient back out. But every time infant does that, they are learning where the food is in their mouth. Slowly and incrementally, babies learn how to move food to different parts of their mouth. They learn their natural language can assist push food around the mouth in lots of directions. They learn their palate, tongue, gums, and saliva will break the food down as information technology moves effectually their rima oris. All of these actions turn a solid food into something like a mash!
Some experts suggest that purees teach babies to eat correctly, and gives practice swallowing solids before you introduce the thought of chewing. Most babies exercise non need to be taught how to swallow. Swallowing is a deep brainstem reflex nowadays past xv weeks gestation2 and well established past full term nascency. Babies already know how to swallow; at that place is no need to practice! Interestingly plenty, thicker textures are really easier for babies to swallow (remember purees), and our feeding therapists explain that babies who accept swallowing difficulty are really prescribed thickened milk to drinkable! Simply purees do teach babe a motor pattern: bring food in, move information technology back, swallow. This is a dangerous pattern because most solid foods crave chewing before you movement them back and can safely consume. We believe that exclusive purees are time wasted because babe isn't practicing chewing and is practicing a unsafe motor pattern that must be unlearned.
Interestingly, the BLISS study besides demonstrated that infants who started solids with finger foods experienced more than gagging at six months, butlessgagging at 8-9 months equally they adult more control and coordination in moving food around their mouth. 9 This demonstrates that babies who are given the opportunity to piece of work with finger foods early on in their solids journey—well before eight months of age—develop the oral-motor skills required for mature eating more than quickly than spoon-fed babies.
After a couple of months, most babies who outset with finger foods at half dozen months of age develop the skill and coordination to chew and move well-chewed nutrient backward to consume safely. The baby feels comfortable with their skills and is accepted to food moving in this way. The trunk won't initiate a gag so readily.
Past dissimilarity, babies who kickoff solids with purées take had little chewing practice from six-8 months. It's probable they are less coordinated with moving nutrient effectually their rima oris, less able to break down the food, and less condom in the instance that the food gets pushed back farther in the mouth than they can handle.
How to help infant motion past gagging by building skill
Successful eating is not just about chewing but most feeling where the food is in the oral cavity and knowing if it's chewed "enough" to swallow safely. As adults, most of us tin can identify and discretely spit out a tiny piece of bone or eggshell from a bite of food. Because this is happening inside the mouth, nosotros aren't using our eyes; our brains visualize what's going on inside our mouth, even though nosotros don't oft encounter what'south going on in there. Nosotros have a mental image of our rima oris and where everything is in relation to other parts. Babies don't take this "mental map" of their mouth at starting time.
To help yous understand the necessity of a mental map, recall virtually babies learning to stand. Earlier they can do this, they need to develop "body awareness" or, essentially, a mental "map" of where all their body parts are in relation to each other. Baby lays on the floor and slowly learns to roll effectually before they ever sit upwards. Rolling and touching their whole body—from caput to toe—while their muscles button and pull helps form the mental "map" of their torso. They need deep input all over their body to add all the details to that map. A pocket-size touch to 1 part of their body or a lite brush of your hand over their body helps a lilliputian simply isn't actually enough. It'southward the floor's firm input to the whole body while moving the muscles that actually seems to course a clear map.
The same goes for the inside the mouth. When things bear upon the inside of our oral cavity, a map slowly "draws" in our brain. Every bit babies develops the map within their oral cavity, they gain more than command, figuring out how to move nutrient around appropriately. They as well become more than confident in their skill to move nutrient around. This control seems to help quiet the gag response and motility information technology further dorsum in the mouth over time. The babe does not need the gag reflex to consume once they have a clear map and strong coordination. They now have active control to chew the food, know if it's chewed enough, motility it dorsum to swallow, or spit information technology out and try again.
We know that many types of sensory input in the mouth help babies grade the "mental map," but that bigger inputs are more effective than lite sensory inputs. (Recollect virtually the difference betwixt a tight hug versus a tickle on the shoulder.)
At that place are two types of input that feeding therapists know are nigh constructive for sensory-motor learning:
- Bear upon or tactile input – when nutrient touches a part or many parts of the mouth
- Messages from the muscles and joints or proprioceptive input – when the rima oris gnaws on firm or resistive foods that don't break when chewing.
The simultaneous combination of tactile and proprioceptive input is most effective for forming the map. This is why feeding therapists frequently recommend giving resistive, flavorful foods like a rib os for babe to chew.
Foods like a rib os accomplish the trifecta:
- Baby can concur the nutrient, easily put information technology in their mouth, and pull it back out with their hands, which gives them control to keep the nutrient at the forepart of their mouth fifty-fifty if they don't have oral motor control.
- Baby gets large input to their mouth (touch input and muscle feedback as they bite on the bone), which maps the oral fissure and leads to improve control in the future.
- Baby triggers ii key reflexes (biting reflex and the tongue lateralization reflex), which mimic chewing and help babe build strength and coordination for time to come eating.
Are these experiences for eating? No. These are "exercises" to assist build a stronger connectedness between the mouth and the encephalon. Cartoon a detailed map of the mouth contributes to decreasing the sensitivity of the gag. As this map develops, the babe also develops more confidence in their skill, further decreasing the gag'southward sensitivity.
When to seek aid
We recommend you lot speak with your kid'southward pediatrician regarding a referral to a feeding therapist if:
- Baby continues to gag at most meals after an initial learning period (one to ii months of finger foods).
- Baby is oftentimes becoming upset after gagging (crying, tantrums, vomiting).
- Infant is airsickness at most meals, fifty-fifty on an empty breadbasket.
Let's normalize the gag
While it can be agonizing—and nervus-wracking to watch—gagging is a completely normal reflex in infants, children, and adults. Bottom line:
- Babies volition likely gag when they first outset solids, regardless of starting on purées or finger food.
- Babies who are spoon-fed thin purées are likely to gagless initially simply gagmore later on on when they start finger foods.
- Babies who start with finger foods tend to gagmore in the showtime andlesslater on as their oral-motor skills develop more rapidly.
- All babies gag in their eating journey—it's one way they learn how to consume. The good news is that babies typically outgrow gagging afterwards a couple of months of practice with diverse textured finger foods.
Infant CPR & First Aid Resources
1 of the near important things you can do to protect baby is take a CPR form online or at your local health facility and review rubber procedures. Some resources:
- American Ruby Cross: Child & Baby CPR
- American Heart Clan: Infant CPR Grooming Kits
- MedlinePlus: Choking First Help for Infants Nether 1
Remember, you lot are responsible for supervising your child's health intendance and for evaluating the appropriateness of the information in this article for your kid. Simply you know your child and how your child will react to foods and feeding procedures. Although the information presented in this article is based on well-documented research by medical and nutritional professionals, information technology is up to you to review and consider the information and how information technology will piece of work with your child.
Always seek the advice of your pediatric doctor, nutritionist or health intendance provider with whatsoever questions you may accept regarding a medical condition or feeding issue. Yous should refer to our Terms of Use for further information.
Reviewed by:
K. Rappaport, OTR/L, MS, SCFES, IBCLC
G. Grenawitzke, OTD, OTR/L, SCFES, IBCLC, CNT
- Rapley, G., & Murkett, T. (2010).Babe-Led Weaning. The Essential Guide to Introducing Solid Foods.
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