One of the Most Dangerous Objects in Your Home

Warning: Children who swallow button (disc) batteries are at significant risk for suffering serious, even deadly internal burns and injuries, in addition to choking. Parents and caregivers must be aware of this common and frequently overlooked danger around the home. Such batteries are often hiding in plain sight. Swallowing these coin-sized batteries is a medical emergency. Call the Poison Control Center right away for treatment advice, 1-800-222-1222.

‘Tis the season for button batteries! These small, disc shaped batteries are typically found in many common products – children’s toys, games, flashing costume jewelry, and singing books; holiday decorations, calculators, watches, remotes, hearing aids, key fobs, flashlights, and many other products. “Most parents and caregivers are unaware that the toys and everyday items their young children play with, contain these potentially dangerous batteries,” says Diane Calello, MD, Executive and Medical Director of the New Jersey Poison Control Center at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School’s Department of Emergency Medicine. “It does not take very long for a coin-sized battery to begin to cause serious injury once it gets stuck inside the body; internal chemical burns can result quickly, producing serious, even permanent damage to the esophagus and other internal organs.”

So far this year, the New Jersey Poison Control Center has referred 29 children to hospital emergency departments for swallowing button batteries. Along with these batteries, high-powered magnets may cause devastating, internal damage if swallowed. “Not only are magnets a choking hazard, but if two or more magnets are swallowed together, they can attract one another inside the body, causing a blockage or twist in the intestines. A single magnet may pass through just fine, but two or more is asking for serious trouble,” says Calello. To date, the state’s poison control center has consulted on 40 cases where children were exposed to such magnets.

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New Jersey residents can reach their poison control center in the following ways: call (1-800-222-1222), text, or chat.

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