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 The fidget spinner is a toy made of metal or plastic and consists of
a central bearing surrounded by three arm-pods, which rotate around
the center. Some types of fidget spinners include light emitting
diodes (LED) that run on button batteries. A new report details two
cases in which young children suffered burns to the esophagus after
ingesting batteries from the toys.
“After treating our 4-year-old patient with significant injury
(from) ingestion of a fidget spinner disc containing a button
battery, we were immediately of the mindset that this was an
important advocacy opportunity because of how common this toy is in
households with kids of all ages, and how poorly marked many of the
toy's packaging is regarding any warnings,” Dr. Yoseph Gurevich told
Reuters Health in an email.
“We were also wondering if anyone else at other medical centers
around the country has seen ingestion injuries from fidget spinners.
Once we connected with our colleagues in Denver, Colorado, who also
had a child with a similar injury, we knew this needed to reach the
medical and lay public communities,” said Gurevich, who is a
pediatric gastroenterologist at Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children's
Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York.
Reports of isolated non-ingestion injuries related to use and misuse
of fidget spinners had already led the U.S. Consumer Product Safety
Commission (CPSC) to issue formal public safety tips related to its
use, said Gurevich.
“However, the focus was not particularly on ingestion risk, which is
the most dangerous risk of any related to this toy if there is a
button battery involved,” he said.
Gurevich and his colleagues described the two children’s cases in
the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.
One child swallowed the central disk cap of a broken fidget spinner,
including a small button battery, while the other youngster
swallowed a battery released from a damaged disk.
One child required emergency surgery to remove a piece of the broken
toy, including a one-inch button battery, and remained in the
hospital for nearly three weeks.
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“Any toy, and just as important any household object, that is
powered by a button battery can be dangerous in the hands of
children,” Gurevich said.
Many battery ingestions in small children occur after a battery is
dislodged from a product not intended for children, such as a watch,
hearing aid, or adult electronic device, said Gurevich.
“It is important for caregivers to evaluate what objects around the
house are not intended for child use, but could be reached by kids
and lead to accidental ingestion,” he said. “If it is in the house
and not in a locked cabinet or drawer, children will find it.”
With toys, it's important to check the compartment housing the
battery to make sure it is completely secure and the battery cover
is tight, without chance of being removed by the child, said
Gurevich.
Dr. Athos Bousvaros, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Boston
Children's Hospital who coauthored an editorial published with the
report, told Reuters Health by phone, “Most button batteries have
warnings, they're difficult to open up and people are aware of them.
But it sounds like with these cases of fidget spinners, the spinners
were easy to break, the batteries were inside, (and) there wasn't
any warning about the battery.”
A swallowed battery could potentially tear a hole in the esophagus
connected to the aorta, and the child could bleed to death, said
Bousvaros.
“That's really the risk of these button batteries. Basically it's
very severely caustic,” he said. “In the worst case scenario, which
none of these cases had, you get the feared complication of the
aorta-esophageal fistula, which is a well known, though rare
complication of button batteries ingestion and almost always results
in death."
SOURCES: http://bit.ly/2DS2usW and http://bit.ly/2DPUeKe Journal of
Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, online January 24, 2018.
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