As a parent I try and do whatever I possibly can to keep my children safe. When my kids were babies and then toddlers I had safety locks on everything. I put up gates to keep the kids out of the kitchen so they wouldn’t wonder in there when I was in another room. I would also make sure there was nothing lying around that was small enough for them to swallow.
My son swallowed a marble once when he was about 3 years old. My daughter had received some marbles as a party favor. I thought I threw them all out. I guess I had dropped one and some how my son found it and swallowed it. Oh my goodness! I was in such a panic! I was ready to race him to the hospital for emergency surgery. That is until the pediatrician said he would be OK. As long as the marble was stuck it would find it’s way back out.
Even the most conscientious parent can overlook everyday objects around the house that can be potentially dangerous to their child. For example, the bathroom scale, a calculator and the remote control all have one dangerous thing in common – button cell batteries.
Did you know that it only takes about two hours for a button battery to cause serious burns in a child’s esophagus?
I was shocked to learn that in 2010 more than 3,400 children ingested button batteries. The number of cases has literally quadrupled in the past five years.
Button cell batteries can be found in a wide variety of objects, even some that you would suspect.
- Singing or talking books and greeting cards
- Flameless candles
- Small remote controls (MP3 player, DVD player)
- Car keys
- Bathroom Scales
- Calculators
Even some toys have button cell batteries in them.
I honestly never gave them any thought. I feel horrible about that too. We have holiday decorations that require button cell batteries. These items have been easily accessible by my children ever since they were little. Thank goodness that they never broke open or one of my children find a way of opening the battery compartment.
It’s possible that your child could swallow a button cell battery and not even know it. The battery could cause coughing, drooling and discomfort and could mimic a childhood illness. That means a child could go untreated which puts the child at risk for serious complications and damage.
Check out this video. It’s really an eye opener.
Safe Kids Worldwide and Energizer have recently announced a critical partnership to share life-saving information with parents and caregivers about the potential risks of swallowing coin-sized button batteries. The formation of “The Battery Controlled” by Safe Kids and Energizer shines a light on this growing issue and provides easy steps parents and caregivers can take to prevent injuries and deaths to children.
Here are some important key factors to keep in mind.
- Keep button batteries and devices that use them out of reach if the battery compartments aren’t secure.
- If a child swallows a battery, go to the emergency room right away.
- Tell others about this hidden danger and share these steps.
For more information on this important issue and for tips on how to protect your family, visit www.TheBatteryControlled.com.
The Battery Controlled has a Facebook page set up (www.Facebook.com/TheBatteryControlled) with a special pledge parents, grandparents and care givers can take to show they are dedicated to removing the possible danger of their child getting a hold of a device that contains the button cell batteries. Currently 368 families have taken the pledge and thankfully 678,711 potentially dangerous household items have been secured to prevent a child from ingesting the dangerous batteries.
You can also follow The Battery Controlled on Twitter, www.Twitter.com/TheBatteryControlled.
This holiday season and year round please make a point of keeping these dangerous items out of reach of your little ones.
Kimberly
*I was not compensated for this post.I posted this information for the benefit of my site readers. Any opinions expressed are my own.
This is really great information, thank you for sharing it.
I have two thoughts:
1. If you ever lose something small and dangerous, count on a toddler to find it! *Of COURSE* he found the marble! Leave it to the curious creature on the ground to find the thing that you desperately don’t want them to find.
2. I am *SO GLAD* my kids safely made it past the toddler stage where they put everything in their mouths!!!
This is horrifying! You really have to watch little kids like a hawk. They make me so paranoid that they are going to get hurt on my watch!