A MUM who claims her tot went “floppy and unconscious” minutes after gulping a slushy is now urging kids to steer clear – believing the “poisonous” iced drink should be BANNED for under-12s.
Kim Moore faced every parent’s worst nightmare when her daughter Marnie, then four, suddenly went “pale and unresponsive” at a children’s party.
The 35-year-old had bought her and older sister Orla, six, a refillable slushy but 10 minutes later Marnie fell unconscious.
Desperate Kim failed to shake her daughter awake so she rushed to Burnley General Teaching Hospital in Burnley, Lancashire, where doctors discovered her blood sugar levels were dangerously low.
The terrified mum-of-two feared the worst and rushed her to Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital in Blackburn, Lancashire, where she remained for the next three days.
Kim was horrified when doctors said her daughter’s medical episode was caused by the slush-ice drink she’d consumed minutes before.
The call centre team leader now suspects her little girl, who is now nine, suffered from glycerol toxicity.
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.
But in light of this research, Kim believes the recommended age for slushies should be 12 after her own daughter fell seriously ill five years ago [2020] after consuming what she labels a “poison” drink.
Kim, from Burnley, Lancashire, said: “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.
“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 actually 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.”
Terrified about her daughter’s sudden decline, Kim rushed Marnie to A&E where doctors confirmed the tot was in hypoglycemic shock – a medical emergency caused by dangerously low blood sugar.
Kim said: “I had no clue what had caused it. She was unconscious for around 25 minutes while they brought her blood sugars up.
“In hospital, she screamed out in agony saying her head hurt and threw up everywhere.
“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.
She screamed out in agony saying her head hurt and threw up everywhere
Kim Moore
“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.”
Marnie was discharged after three days in hospital – but Kim banned her daughter from ever ordering a slushed drink again.
Kim said: “I was in absolute fear. If I hadn’t taken her to hospital, it may have had a different outcome.
“So many places promote free slushies when you play there but you’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.
“I don’t think they should be sold to kids 12 and under in all honesty. I wouldn’t wish what we went through on our worst enemy. It was awful.”
GLYCEROL is a naturally occurring alcohol and sugar substitute which helps slush ice drinks, also known as slushies, maintain their texture by preventing liquid from freezing solid.
While it’s found in some other foods, it’s added at much lower quantities than in slush ice drinks.
In the UK, slushies containing the ingredient are not recommended for children under the age of four.
The advice comes under NHS guidance, which states due to the high levels of glycerol in slush drinks, young children are at risk of having too much glycerol, which can cause dizziness, low blood sugar (glucose), confusion and they can even pass out.
These symptoms occur in young children because their bodies can’t break glycerol down as efficiently as adults.
The guidance was issued by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), with the most recent updates occurring in 2023.
However, academics have called for the public health advice to be revisited after a study of hospitalised children with ages ranging from two to almost seven years old.
At very high levels of exposure – typically when several of these products are drunk by a child in a short space of time – glycerol intoxication could cause shock, hypoglycaemia and loss of consciousness.
Typical early warning signs of hypoglycaemia are feeling hungry, trembling or shakiness, and sweating.
