More and more toys shrill, flash and move. They are usually powered by button batteries, which have also displaced larger cylinder batteries in other devices. For toddlers, they can be dangerous: they like to take the shiny platelets into their mouths. In the worst case, the batteries end up in the esophagus, the stomach, or the bronchi.
Such incidents are piling up, according to a recent analysis from the USA. Twenty years ago, on average, 9.5 children out of every 10,000 children under the age of six had to go to the emergency room because, after swallowing something, by 2015, 18 out of every 10,000 children had already been taken. The rate has almost doubled, according to researchers around Danielle Orsagh-Yentis of the Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus in the journal "Pediatrics". The data comes from the national recording system NEISS.
In about two thirds of cases, one to three year olds were affected. The children most often swallowed coins (62 percent), followed by toy parts (10 percent), jewelry (7 percent) and batteries (7 percent).
What parents should consider
Compared with other foreign bodies, the importance of batteries is still small. However, swallowing them can have deadly consequences: if the batteries get stuck in the esophagus, they can cause severe burns, holes or swelling, which can lead to respiratory distress. Between 1995 and 2010, at least 14 children died in the US for swallowing or inhaling batteries.
There have also been comparable deaths in Germany, says Florian Eyer, chief physician of the Department of Clinical Toxicology / Giftnotruf Munich. The inclusion of foreign bodies, especially button cells, was also a frequent request to poison poison Munich, but also nationwide. The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has registered hundreds of cases in the past ten years in which button cells accidentally landed in the human body.
If a child ingests a button cell, it should definitely be taken to the hospital, says Eyer. "If necessary, there must be an X-ray taken there or the button cell even endoscopically salvaged." Parents should also make sure that toddlers can not get on button cells such as remote controls and small toy vehicles. Especially when larger siblings live with battery-powered toys in the household.
BfR is especially dangerous when it comes to the discharge current of the batteries when they come into contact with the moist mucous membranes of the esophagus. This produces so-called hydroxide ions, which can lead to severe chemical burns. Especially with large button cells with more than two centimeters in diameter, they are likely to get stuck in the esophagus. After a few hours symptoms such as vomiting, loss of appetite, fever or coughing appear.
Slips a battery into the stomach, there are according to BfR rarely complications. In these cases, it is usually sufficient to wait for the natural separation of the button cell under medical supervision.
Problem: swallowed magnets
However, it becomes dangerous when a button cell or other object is inhaled, adds pediatrician Josef Kahl. In such cases, a chronic bronchitis threatens to pneumonia. If parents do not know that their child has inhaled a battery, a diagnosis is particularly difficult. The symptoms such as pain, coughing, then fever and general malaise indicate many diseases.
A problem according to the US researchers also swallowed magnets, especially those made of neodymium. The number of surgical interventions for swallowed magnets in the United States between 2002 and 2012 significantly increased, it says in the journal "Pediatrics". If several of them enter the digestive tract, they can get dressed and puncture the intestine. Other possible - and potentially fatal - consequences include the dying of tissue, toxemia and constipation.