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Ashley Martin at RoSPA outlines some of the key risks to children from ingestion and poisoning - with an essential reminder on preventing risk.
It's vital for parents, carers and community practitioners (CPs) to be aware of the potential hazards for children when it comes to wrongly consumed objects: choking on small objects, accidental poisoning from hazardous substances and internal injuries from ingesting magnets or button batteries. Ultimately, ingestions can cause death. In fact, children under five are among those most at risk from an accident in the home. Yet the prevention measures for many types of ingestion injury are often the same.
BEWARE BUTTON BATTERIES
The Safe and Secure campaign from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) aims to reduce the number of incidents involving the ingestion of button batteries by children. It was launched in conjunction with the Nil by Mouth safety campaign from the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) in March 2022.
Button batteries - also known as button cell batteries or coin batteries - are small, flat circular batteries that are used to power many objects, such as watches, electronic toys, LED lights, key fobs and remote controls. They come in various sizes, but most are 1cm to 2cm in diameter. This means that they are of a similar size and shape to some sweets and can easily be swallowed.
These batteries have the potential to seriously harm or prove fatal if swallowed. When combined with saliva, the electrical current from the battery produces caustic soda that can burn through the throat or stomach and can cause damage to other internal organs.
The main symptom to look out for is vomiting fresh, bright red blood (Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, 2018). This...