Battery Health Problems & Kids

You see them everywhere but probably don't pay much attention. But small batteries can pose a big health problem for your young kids.

It's these small "button" batteries used in all sorts of electronics today. Unfortunately they have a bad combination---they are easy to swallow and if they get stuck inside the body can cause a lot of damage.

Researchers, reporting in the journal Pediatrics, have found the rate of severe poisonings in children from swallowing batteries has gone up in the last twenty years, mainly because of the lithium type batteries we are talking about.

Most objects children swallow tend to pass on their own without causing problems. But these "button" batteries, especially the common 20mm size--which is about the size of a nickel, can get stuck in a child's esophagus, that's their eating tube. When that happens the battery can create an electrical current that can burn the surrounding tissue. Most of the time no one sees the child swallow the battery, and early symptoms of a problem can be vague. So often the problem goes unnoticed until it gets even worse and in some cases this small battery has caused the death of a child.

So you best bet is to both keep these batteries and even the electronics that have them inside out of a child's reach.