Children

How many button batteries are in your home? After counting remotes, key fobs and toys, don’t forget the ones in thermometers, scales, and even singing greeting cards. Small batteries are everywhere, and that can spell danger for children.

According to data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, from 2010 to 2019 there was an average of one battery-related pediatric visit to the emergency department every 1.25 hours, up from one every 2.66 hours in the previous decade. The majority were children under 5, who swallow batteries or put them in their nose or ears.

Reese’s Law, enacted this summer,  will require that devices with button batteries carry a warning label to keep the batteries out of children’s reach and ensure they have child-resistant battery compartments. But adult awareness and supervision are still the best way to protect children. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends:

• Check which electronic devices contain button batteries, and keep them out of children’s reach.
• As with matches and lighters, keep all batteries locked and out of sight of young children.
• Promptly recycle dead batteries or put them outside in a garbage can.
• If you think your child might have swallowed a battery, or put it in their nose or ears, don’t hesitate.  Call poison control and head to the emergency department immediately.

Child-resistant caps on medication bottles have helped reduce fatal poisonings of young children in the U.S. since they were mandated decades ago. But they can only protect children if they’re in place.

The holiday season brings visits to and from friends and families of all ages. Grandparents and adults who don’t usually have young children under the same roof may need to be reminded to carefully replace the cap on medications and keep medication bottles out of sight and reach.

Medications have overtaken household products such as cleaning fluids as the leading cause of child poisonings, and the number of ED visits and calls to poison control centers for medication overdoses is rising. Between 2005 and 2009, ED visits for medication overdoses among children younger than 5 years rose 20%.*

The peak incidence for unintentional medication overdoses is in 2-year-olds. It’s an age when young children are developing greater ability to move around on their own—and when their ability to reach surfaces previously out of reach can increase unexpectedly from one week to the next.

For all ages, analgesics (painkillers) are the #1 substance involved in poisonings reported to poison control centers, responsible for 11% of such poisonings.

The initiative Preventing Overdoses and Treatment Exposures Task Force (PROTECT) is promoting development of a new generation of safety packaging to limit the amount of medication a child could ingest even if a child-resistant cap has not been re-secured properly.

Acknowledging that even enhanced safety packaging will not be 100% “child-proof,” PROTECT has also launched the “Up and Away” public education campaign to promote safe use and storage of medications. Among their suggestions:  program the national poison control number (800-222-1222) into your cell phone.

Find more tips for preventing poisonings and other injuries in Prevention 1^st’s Safety Resources.

*Data from the National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System, and Center for Disease Control and Prevention.