When the weather turns frigid, there’s only one thing to do. It’s about making chicken noodle soup in a pot. On that first cold afternoon in early December, I braised a whole rotisserie chicken with fennel, dill, and orzo and tossed it into a bowl for a cozy family meal.Just when you think you’ve reached your peak Hygge, my 5-month-old son suddenly grabbed my steaming bowl and tipped the soup over himself. An ear-splitting scream rang out, and I was whisked away in a frenzied taxi to the pediatric emergency room.
My husband and I waited in the ER, guilt-ridden with a crying child with no pants on. But when we told the doctors and nurses what happened, they didn’t seem upset. As they bandaged his son’s blistered skin, they explained that children get scalded by soup.especially Always have noodle soup. When we got into the ambulance, a nurse said, “Welcome to parenthood,” and we were taken to a nearby burn ward.
It’s no wonder children often get burned by hot liquids. But what about soup? In fact, soup burns are “very common,” said James Gallagher, director of the burn center at Weill Cornell Medicine NewYork-Presbyterian, where I took my son. After hot tap water Soup is the main cause Percentage of burn-related hospital visits among young children in the United States.Estimation 100,000 American children Every year, people get burned from spilled food or drinks. And in many cases soup is the culprit. Soup injuries in children occur so frequently that a surprising amount of scientific literature has been devoted to this injury, giving rise to terms such as: Morbidity during diet, starch burnand the cooling curve soup.
Anyone can get burned by soup, but kids can’t help but knock things over. Toddlers have little control over their prehensile little hands, while older children still lack balance and coordination. Just give them a bowl of soup or keep it nearby and you have a recipe for disaster. Consider instant ramen soup. This type is made by pouring boiling water into a styrofoam container containing dried noodles, or by adding water and heating it in the microwave. in one Small research from 2020, 21 children, ages 4 to 12, carried foam cups filled with blue paint that resembled instant ramen containers from the microwave to the table. Nearly one in five children spilled “soup” on their white shirts, most often on their arms.
Part of the danger lies in the nature of the soup itself. Boiling water is hot enough to burn your skin. But salt, oil and other ingredients raise the boiling point of water, making the soup much hotter and potentially causing more injuries, Gallagher said.Soup too stay High temperatures last longer, prolonging the potential for harm: A 2007 study I find that certain soups take longer to boil and then cool than tap water. Even cooling down to just 150 degrees Fahrenheit can cause “severe burns.” Explanation I got it.
Not all soups are created equal. As the authors of a 2007 study found, noodles can “stick to the skin” and cause deep burns reminiscent of the stinging tentacles of jellyfish.There may be some residual fever longer than expected. “Noodles seem to be particularly problematic,” Wendalyn Little, a professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Emory University School of Medicine who studies burnt soup, told me. In general, hearty soups are more dangerous than soups with a lot of stock. engineer who studied A comparison of two types of canned soups, thick (chicken noodle) and simmering (tomato), concluded that the former can cause more severe burns because it prevents the solid ingredients from escaping the skin. Ta. “Simmering soup looks like water, but what if it was New England clam chowder? It’s really thick and stays in place,” Gallagher said. The chicken soup I made for my family was flavored with stock, but the orzo made it especially thick. (I’m glad I didn’t make mushy porridge that day.)
For these reasons, perhaps the most dangerous soup is instant noodle soup. nearly 2,000 American children get burned According to some estimates, it happens every year. According to an analysis published earlier this year, this type of soup caused the culprit. 31 percent of pediatric burns Over 10 years at a Chicago hospital. These products are dangerous for reasons other than their content. They are often packed in tall, flimsy containers, which can be dangerous. easy to fall down. Microwavable versions can be dangerous for children who don’t yet fully understand that heating a room temperature product in the microwave for a few minutes can make it piping hot. “Such liquids can get superheated, so much so that there is a small explosion when you touch them,” Gallagher explained, as the boiling liquid splatters onto your skin.
Soup burns can be very serious. In some cases, burns may be severe enough to require tube feeding or tube feeding. intravenous narcotics. 2007 study Reports of children who were burned by instant noodle soup all suffered “at least second-degree burns,” which damaged the first two layers of skin and usually caused blistering. The children who suffered upper body burns, most of whom were young children who tended to reach for objects at high places, were hospitalized for an average of 11 days.
However, in most cases, soup burns are painful but not life-threatening. Gallagher says that if scarring does occur, it is most severe during childhood and then disappears. If a burn occurs, immediately remove clothing or diapers soaked with hot liquid, pour cold water on the wound for 20 minutes, and call your doctor, he said. Avoid applying ice to the injury site, as it can damage the tissue, he added.
Children quickly move on. It is up to the parents to deal with the long-term effects. “There’s a special feeling of guilt when a baby is burned,” Gallagher says. A week after the incident, my family returned to the burn unit for follow-up. Parents with small children filled the waiting room. We exchanged a knowing look. The nurse removed the thick bandage from my son’s thigh. Fortunately, unlike his parents, he emerged without a scar.
