What happens to swallowed chewing gum?
Anahad O’Connor, in his August 28, 2007 “Really?” column in the New York Times, explains it all for you. Short story shorter: Don’t worry about it. Here’s the Times piece. The Claim: Swallowed Gum Takes a Long Time to Digest The Facts: For generations, parents have told their children never to swallow chewing gum, lest it sit undigested for days, weeks or even years. This is, for the most part, an old wives’ tale. Swallowed chewing gum typically passes through the digestive tract without harm and is eliminated at the same rate as other foods. But rare complications can occur. The medical literature contains several case reports of people, mostly small children, who developed intestinal obstructions because they had a habit of swallowing their gum. A 1998 study in the journal Pediatrics, for example, described three children who came to a clinic with intestinal pain, constipation and other symptoms, and were found to have small masses of chewing gum in their guts. One was a 4-year-old b
