Mucous Plugging
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Explanation | Ways to Prevent a Mucous Plug | Signs That a Trach May Be Plugged l How to Remove a Mucous Plug
What Is a Mucous Plug?
Mucus can collect in the tracheotomy tube or airway and cause a "plug," making it difficult for your child to breathe easily.
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Ways to Prevent a Mucous Plug
- Make sure your child drinks, or gets plenty of fluids through his feeding tube
- Use a mist collar with the tracheotomy tube with sleep, or if mucous is thick or blood tinged
- Use an artificial nose when mist is not in use
- Encourage coughing out secretions
- Periodic suctioning
- Use saline drops to help loosen mucus with or without suctioning
- Performing routine tracheotomy tube changes
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Signs That a Trach May Be Plugged
- Fast, noisy, hard breathing
- Dry whistling sound from the tracheotomy tube
- Restlessness
- Clammy skin, sweating
- Complaints from your child that he or she cannot breathe
- Difficulty passing a suction catheter through the tracheotomy tube
- Blue color around lips, nails and skin
- No breathing and your child does not wake to your touch or calling his / her name
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How to Remove a Mucous Plug
- Try to suction the tracheotomy tube
- Place saline drops into the tracheotomy tube, and try to suction again
- Repeat saline drops into the tracheotomy tube and push the drops down to the plug with puffs of air from your breathing bag attached to the tracheotomy tube. Try to suction again.
- Change the tracheotomy tube if you cannot pass a suction catheter
- Call 911 / start rescue breathing and / or CPR if trach tube change is not effective.
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Revised 7/07
