Wellness Wednesday is sponsored by Intermountain Health
As you hit the stores for some holiday shopping this weekend, doctors want you to be aware of potential dangers lurking in some popular toys.
“These are toys that absolutely can be fun,” said Intermountain trauma surgeon Dr. Laurie Bauman.
Unfortunately, Dr. Bauman has seen too many cases of kids rushed to the hospital after swallowing some popular toys or their parts.
Bauman said she loves Christmas, but doesn't love the dangers she sees in her operating room – magnetic toys.
“If they're small enough to fit in your mouth, they shouldn't be around children,” she said. “If magnets are ingested, and particularly if they move forward at a different rate, the magnets actually can come together, but in different pieces of the intestine. What happens then is the intestines can actually get pinched together and this requires an emergency surgery,” she said.
Even worse, “Pinching can also tear holes in the intestines, exposing the child's body to infection.”
And there's another swallowing hazard just as dangerous and even more common – button batteries that seem to be everywhere these days.
“So, the dangerous part about those is they can get stuck and particularly in the throat or, or the esophagus, which is the swallowing tube,” said Bauman. “And what happens when they get stuck is actually the battery can activate and burn a hole in the esophagus of the child.”
This can often happen with young children who aren’t able to explain to their caretakers that they swallowed a battery.
“Oftentimes families aren't sure - just something seems off or their child is not swallowing correctly,” said Bauman. “The hard part about this is some of this happens within minutes and immediately, so those are activated as a level one emergency for us that we need to respond to right away, and we do see those fairly often.” she said.
During this holiday season doctors remind parents to be mindful of choking hazards holiday gifts can cause even if they don’t include magnets or batteries. A good rule of thumb is to make sure a toy is larger than three centimeters in diameter and six centimeters in length to ensure it can’t fit in a small child’s windpipe.
If your child is choking or not able to breathe, call 911 immediately.
