FROM Christmas lights to electronic toys and musical cards, dangerous button batteries might be lurking in several items accumulated in your house this festive season.
The tiny circular batteries can cause serious damage if swallowed by accident by unsuspecting children, sparking a toxic chemical reaction that can burn through tissue.
This is a life-threatening emergency, so if you do you suspect your tot has swallowed a battery you should take them to A&E as quickly as possible.
But a staple household ingredient you most likely have in your kitchen cupboard can help buy your child time until they can be treated – with shocking pictures showing just how effective it can be.
A study published to the journal Laryngoscope tested how effective household items were at stalling damage caused button batteries – from apple juice to honey and common medications.
When swallowed, the batteries can react with bodily fluids and spew out a caustic soda-like substance that can burn through skin and tissue in as little as one or two hours.
If the button battery isn’t removed promptly, the reaction can continue after the battery is removed causing severe damage.
“Ingestion of button batteries can rapidly lead to caustic oesophageal injury in infants and children, resulting in significant morbidity and mortality,” study authors wrote.
“Efforts to ameliorate the button battery problem have focused
predominantly on primary prevention.
“Little has gone into developing treatments for the “golden window”
(i.e., the interval after button battery ingestion and before its endoscopic removal), to halt or reduce injury progression.”
Using tissue collected from pigs to mimic an oesophagus – the tube connecting the mouth to the stomach – researchers put a number of readily available household items to the test, examining their ability to protect the tissue until button batteries can be removed.
These included:
They placed button batteries on the tissue, spritzing it with saline in place of bodily fluids like saliva.
Researchers then tested out their various liquids and solutions, placing a small amount on the tissue every 10 or 15 minutes and measuring acidity levels (pH).
These were all tested against a control tissue sample that only had saline applied on it.
The batteries were removed after 120 minutes and pictures were taken of the injury.
“Only honey and Carafate neutralised the increased tissue pH at the battery application site to clinically optimal levels and statistically significant degrees compared to the saline control,” researchers said.
“This held true with their ability to reduce injury severity on cadaveric tissue.
“Conversely, saline-treated tissue maintained a highly alkaline pH and developed a greater visible injury.”
Shocking images lay bare the damage button batteries can inflict – and highlight just how protective something as simple as honey can be.
A first picture of pig tissue doused in saline shows a blackened button battery and a singed black ring where the battery was touching the tissue.
By contrast, the tissue samples treated with honey and Carafate were left with only a faint indentation from the button battery.
Sometimes, symptoms of swallowing a button battery do not become immediately obvious.
Children may have breathing difficulties or be generally unwell.
If the swallowed button battery starts to cause problems, children may cough up or vomit blood.
Batteries inserted into the nose or ear can also cause problems, such as nose bleeds or bleeding from the ear.
Here’s what to do if you suspect your tot has swallowed one:
The doctors in the A&E department will usually x-ray your child to locate the button battery and estimate its size.
The hospital may try to remove the battery by passing an endoscope – a thin flexible plastic tube with a light and camera on the end – down the child’s throat to try to grasp the battery and pull it up.
This will usually be carried out while the child is under general anaesthetic.
They will also be able to look at the damage caused by the button battery through the endoscope to decide what further treatment is needed.
Depending on the amount of damage caused by the battery or if they are unable to remove it safely, the child may be transported to a specialist hospital for further treatment.
Source: Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH)
“Honey was more effective than Carafate and both were significantly better than saline at slowing the discharge of the button battery and neutralising the tissue pH increase,” researchers added.
In 2023, surgeons at Great Ormond Street Hospital said they were seeing one child a month with corrosive burns caused by button batteries.
Most button batteries pass through the body without a problem.
But if a coin cell battery, gets stuck in the food pipe it can burn through it to the main artery and lead to catastrophic internal bleeding and death.
According to the researchers: “Complications are more likely to occur when nothing is done to mitigate a button battery ingestion prior to its removal.”
They’re not the first to suggest using honey to delay the damage caused by batteries.
First aiders from Tiny Hearts Education Instagram shared the tip, saying: “The research shows honey can make a significant difference on the damage caused, it can buy time to get a child into surgery and minimise the long-term harm.”
If you suspect your child has swallowed a battery, the experts suggested giving them 10ml of honey every ten minutes.
The NHS notes that “occasionally, honey contains bacteria that can produce toxins in a baby’s intestines, leading to infant botulism, which is a very serious illness”.
“Do not give your child honey until they’re over one year old,” it adds.
