A mum whose child fell unconscious moments after drinking a slushy has urged other children to avoid the popular drink – and said it should be banned for kids under the age of 12.
Kim Moore was at a children’s party with her then four-year-old daughter Marnie, who suddenly went ‘pale and unresponsive’.
The 35-year-old had bought Marnie and her older sister Orla, six, a refillable slushy – but just ten minutes after drinking it, Marnie became ill and was unable to be awoken.
Marnie was taken to Burnley General Teaching Hospital in Lancashire where doctors discovered her blood sugar levels were dangerously low.
The young girl was then transferred to Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital, where she stayed for three days.
Doctors told Kim that her daughter’s medical episode was likely sparked by the slushie she had drunk at the party.
Marnie, now nine, is believed to have suffered from glycerol toxicity.
Earlier this year, a new study warned children younger than eight shouldn’t be given slush-ice drinks containing the sweetener glycerol after researchers tracked the cases of 21 kids who fell in after drinking them.
Kim has said she wants the recommended age for slushies should be 12 after Marnie’s experience with the ‘poison drink’.
‘We ended up buying two one-litre refillable cups and they were going off playing, eating, getting drinks and coming back but Marnie didn’t drink the full cup, probably only half,’ she said.
‘Then about 10 minutes later, she started getting really aggravated then she started falling asleep so I just thought she was over-tired. It was only five minutes later when I tried to wake her up that I realised she wasn’t waking up and was unconscious. She’d gone really pale.
‘She wasn’t rousing at all and I think it was mum’s instinct that I knew something wasn’t right. She was floppy and completely unconscious. I was shaking her trying to wake her up and there was nothing.’
What have scientists said about slushies?
Scientists have warned children younger than eight should not be given slush-ice drinks containing the sweetener glycerol.
Slush drinks in the UK typically contain glycerol, giving them their texture by stopping the liquid from freezing solid.
The ingredient is already not recommended for under-fours in Britain, but academics have called for that number to rise.
Published in Archives of Disease in Childhood, researchers tracked the cases of 21 kids in the UK and Ireland who fell ill after drinking a slushy.
These medics have now warned slushies containing glycerol ‘may cause a clinical syndrome of glycerol intoxication in young children’.
They added: ‘Clinicians and parents should be alert to the phenomenon, and public health bodies should ensure clear messaging regarding the fact that younger children, especially those under eight years of age, should avoid slush ice drinks containing glycerol.’
After Marnie was diagnosed in A&E, she woke up and screamed in ‘agony’, throwing up and crying about her head hurting.
‘Looking back, she had every single symptom of glycerol toxicity. We got transferred to another hospital and they had no idea what had caused it,’ Kim added. ‘We started looking into the slushy because that was the only thing differently she’d had that day.
‘Doctors couldn’t tell me why it had happened but they knew it was the slushy that had caused it. I went into investigative mum mode trying to work out why this had happened to my child.’
Kim has now warned of other places which promoted free slushies – but says they’re ‘promoting poison’.
‘I don’t think these slushies should be allowed at all. I personally wouldn’t allow my child to drink one at all. It’s not a risk I’m willing to take.’
Last year, another mum called for a ban on slushies after her son started fitting after drinking one. Angus Anderson, three, ended up in hospital after he collapsed in front of his mum Victoria while out shopping.
She said he went limp and stone cold around half an hour after drinking the raspberry-flavoured drink in Port Glasgow, Inverclyde.
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