GOSH doctors issue warning over dangerous toys this festive season

Specialists at the children’s hospital have already treated nine children in the last year who all required major multiple surgeries. The teams at GOSH also often see a rise in cases around the festive period.

Paolo De Coppi, Consultant Paediatric Surgeon at GOSH said: “The danger of these tiny button batteries and magnets is huge – they really can cause horror injuries.

“If swallowed, they could cause irreversible damage to a child’s throat and stomach in a matter of minutes and mean a lifetime of operations and procedures. In the worst cases they can prove fatal.

“Batteries can be caught in the food pipe and in matters of hours destroy both the food pipe and windpipe while magnets can migrate lower in the intestine and cause multiple holes requiring complex surgeries. Urgent treatment is crucial.

“I cannot stress this enough – please, please keep button batteries and magnets away from children.

“In serious cases, the surgeries we perform to reverse the damage use a significant amount of blood bags - up to 13 bags - this is very rare and demonstrates how consequential these incidents are”.

GOSH patient Zelcia and her Mum, Priscilla know first-hand the life-changing impact that swallowing a button battery can have.

In September 2016, one-year-old Zelcia became ill. She was crying, couldn’t eat and seemed as though she may have a chest infection. She was struggling to breathe and was taken to A&E three to four times.

She had an X-Ray which showed what was initially thought to be a 10p, but during the operation doctors discovered it was actually a button battery that had caused a lot of internal damage. Zelcia was transferred to GOSH and has since undergone more than 20 operations. Now aged nine, Zelcia has a tracheostomy and continues to return to GOSH every few months for regular check-ins with her clinical team.

Priscilla said: “We still don’t know how she got the battery. We didn’t know it was that until she went to theatre. The only thing we wanted to know was if she was going to survive, and that was the only thing they were not able to tell me.

“Now we live as much of a normal life as we can, but there’s a lot of uncertainty. We just take it one day at a time. There are so many appointments and so many different teams at the hospital.

“She’s at school now and enjoys dancing and art and is doing well but we know it could have been worse.”

• Keep batteries and magnets safely out of children’s reach – treat them with the same caution as bleach and medicines
• They can be in everyday items including toys, watches, fitness trackers and car keys – if in doubt, always check
• Even old batteries can still be dangerous so make sure you dispose of them safely
• If you think your child has swallowed a button battery or magnet, look out for:
  • Trouble swallowing
  • Vomiting
  • Coughing
  • Choking

Seek medical help immediately. The quicker we can find and remove the batteries or magnets the less damage they will do. Quick action can save lives.