Button Batteries
Small batteries, big danger - MIT News
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image by: Bella's Footprints - Button Battery Awareness
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You need to know about button batteries
If you live with small children, you likely have taken safety precautions to make your home a safer place for them. Knives are stored out of reach, hazardous household cleaners are secured, doors have locks and pools have fences. But within your home right now, you have at least one item (but probably several of them) that can cause grave injury, or death, and you are possibly unaware of how rapidly fatal it is.
The Button Battery...
Parents already know that kids shouldn't play with batteries. But these button batteries are even more dangerous than the traditional batteries simply because they are smaller and easy…
Resources
One More Reason To Avoid Electronic Gifts For Kids: Button Batteries Can Kill
Those shiny coin-like disc batteries (also known as button batteries) have overtaken traditional cylindrical batteries, due to their compact size and high-voltage power, and they are wreaking havoc on young children. Lithium disc batteries, commonly used in key fobs, digital thermometers, remote controls, watches, cameras, holiday ornaments, and hand-held electronic toys, are remarkably attractive to infants, toddlers, and young children, who tend to find ways to hide these glistening beauties in their ear canals, stick them up their noses, or worse, swallow them.
Children Are Swallowing Foreign Objects More Frequently, Study Finds
According to a new study in the journal Pediatrics, the rate of foreign-body ingestions among children under age 6 nearly doubled in the two decades after 1995.
More Children Are Swallowing Batteries and Landing in the E.R.
Twice as many kids needed treatment after putting button batteries in their mouths, noses and ears compared with the previous decade, a new study says. Here’s how to prevent it, and what to do if it happens.
Button batteries kill. Here’s how we can prevent needless child deaths from battery ingestion
Children with button battery injuries have been reported in medical literature since the 1970s. But what was once a rare occurrence has now become more common. There has been a spike in the number of reported severe and fatal button battery injuries.
Button Batteries Pose Swallowing Risk For Kids
Look around the house, and it's hard not to find some electronic toy, gizmo or remote control on just about every flat surface. The problem is that kids can also find them, too, and the curious ones may end up swallowing the batteries inside. Slim round button batteries are a particular problem and account for a growing number of serious injuries and deaths.
New way to make batteries safer
Coating prevents electrical current from damaging the digestive tract after battery ingestion.
Swallowed a Button Battery? Battery in the Nose or Ear?
Most button batteries pass through the body and are eliminated in the stool. However, sometimes batteries get "hung up", and these are the ones that cause problems. A battery that is stuck in the esophagus is especially likely to cause tissue damage. An electrical current can form around the outside of the battery, generating hydroxide (an alkaline chemical) and causing a tissue burn.
You need to know about button batteries (again)
Few other ingested items will cause potentially fatal damage so quickly. And because parents often are not aware at just how serious battery ingestion is, these batteries may fall into the hands of children, and then get accidentally ingested, without their knowledge.
You need to know about button batteries
If you live with small children, you likely have taken safety precautions to make your home a safer place for them. Knives are stored out of reach, hazardous household cleaners are secured, doors have locks and pools have fences. But within your home right now, you have at least one item (but probably several of them) that can cause grave injury, or death, and you are possibly unaware of how rapidly fatal it is. The Button Battery
Emmett's Fight Foundation
Emmett's Fight is dedicated to bring awareness to those with small children about the danger's of button batteries in the home.
Button Battery Task Force
A collaborative effort of representatives from relevant organizations in industry, medicine, public health and government to develop, coordinate and implement strategies to reduce the incidence of button battery ingestion injuries in children.
Dr Greene
Controversy shrouds the best way to manage these ingestions. Some recommend urgent surgery or endoscopy to remove all batteries. Others recommend observation alone.
Battery Controlled
The Battery Controlled is a partnership to raise awareness about the severity of this issue and share information with parents, caregivers and the medical community. This effort is committed to helping parents prevent children from swallowing coin-sized button batteries.
Battery Ingestion Hotline
Most button batteries pass through the body and are eliminated in the stool. However, sometimes batteries get "hung up," and these are the ones that cause problems.
National Capital Poison Center Button Battery Ingestion Triage and Treatment Guideline
Most serious battery ingestions are not witnessed. Consider the possibility of a battery ingestion in every patient with airway obstruction; wheezing; drooling; vomiting; chest pain or discomfort; abdominal pain; difficulty swallowing; decreased appetite or refusal to eat; or coughing, choking or gagging with eating or drinking. Suspect a battery ingestion in every presumed “coin” or other foreign body ingestion. Carefully observe for the battery’s double-rim or halo-effect on AP radiograph or step off on the lateral view.
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