Where's the Button?

How many of you have done this? You've gone to the greeting card isle in your local store and found a really cute musical card. "Perfect for every age!" says the advertisement. You get one for your 5 year old (or 10, 12, or 20 year old) and it ends up in the hands of a toddler. What they don't say is buried in the card are button cell batteries.

Now we all know the cards have to have batteries in order to produce the music, but how many of you THINK about how easy those batteries are to get out of the card, and what can happen to them once they've been removed? When a 3 volt 20mm battery is swallowed, it creates a micro-current inside the body. In as little as two hours it can begin to erode through tissue, sometimes with no symptoms at all. My good friend Renee found out exactly what can happen! A few weeks ago her daughter Kellsey unknowingly swallowed two batteries. What is believed to be several days after the batteries were swallowed, erosion of her esophagus caused her aorta, the major blood vessel in the body, to be at risk of rupturing. Had that happened she would have died within a matter of minutes.

Did you know that every three hours a child in the US enters the emergency room after swallowing button cell batteries? Incidents due to swallowing button batteries counts for 85% of batter related ER visits! Clearly they're too accessible to our kids!

So how can you prevent this from happening to your own child?

NEVER allow your child under age 5 to play with an electronic toy if the batteries are not protected by a cover attached by a screw. If you have younger children in your house, don't allow toys without screwed on covers into your house at all.

Keep remotes, car keys and and other objects with button batteries out of your child's reach.

If there is ever a question that your child swallowed a battery, do NOT wait around to "see what happens" because by the time you notice a symptom. By the time there is a symptom, it could be too late.