More batteries to blame for kids' ER visits |Date: Monday, May
14th, 2012||Return to Archive| Most of those ER trips are due to
button batteries, coin-shaped batteries that have become
ubiquitous in toys, remote controls and hearing aids and
represent a shiny temptation to curious toddlers. Those
batteries carry extra risks, experts said, because if kids
swallow them, they can become lodged in the esophagus and start
an electrical current flowing through the tissue -- without kids
showing any signs of immediate injury. "If a child swallows a
button battery, the parent might not see it happen and the child
might not have symptoms initially -- and the clock is ticking,"
said Dr. Gary Smith, head of the Center for Injury Research and
Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio and
one of the authors on the new study. "We've seen children in
less than two hours have severe, severe injuries from button
batteries getting caught in the esophagus," he told Reuters
Health. Using a nationally-representat