Researchers Warn of Kids’ Injuries From Button-Sized Batteries

Those tiny batteries used to make greeting cards sing and power everything from wrist watches to hearing aids pose a risk of significant injuries to young children who may swallow or otherwise ingest them, researchers are warning.

About 3,000 people of all ages accidentally ingest the type of batteries each year in the United States, according to researchers from Vanderbilt University. About two-thirds of those cases involve children under age 5, with 1- and 2-year-olds at highest risk, according to a U.S. News and World Report article citing researchers.

The button-sized batteries, which are about the size of a dime or even smaller, can easily be swallowed by a child or stuffed up a nose, causing serious and life-threatening injuries. Swallowed batteries can cause a variety of symptoms, including abdominal pain, chest pain and vomiting.

In the most serious cases, children who ingest the batteries develop vocal paralysis and require lifelong dependency on tracheostomy and gastrostomy tubes, researchers said.

The researchers, who studied a decade’s worth of case studies at a children’s hospital, said the problems associated with ingestion of button-sized batteries are compounded because many doctors, parents, and other caregivers are not aware of the health risks they pose.

Acting early to identify and treat button battery ingestion is a key in preventing serious health problems, the study’s authors said. Also, improvements in packaging of the small batteries and better markings of the products to help identify them could also reduce the number of injuries associated with ingesting them.

The study findings were presented this week in San Diego at a conference of the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Foundation.

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