4-Year-Old Hospitalized After Swallowing Tiny Items That Doctors Suspected To Be Button Batteries

A 4-year-old boy in Australia had to be rushed to the hospital after he swallowed some tiny household items.

According to the child's case in international journal Annals of Emergency Medicine, doctors were worried he had ingested button batteries, which can burn holes in parts of the digestive system or choke a baby or toddler after getting lodged in the throat.

The boy was taken to the emergency room after his family were concerned he had swallowed something dangerous. However, he had clear lung fields and was not in any respiratory distress.

The doctors then conducted a chest radiograph, and found a “circle-within-a-circle” item inside the boy's system, raising concerns that these were button batteries.

These items, which are commonly found in children’s toys, watches, remote controls, car keys, scales, thermometers, etc, can cause serious damage and turn deadly. About 20 Australian children are rushed to hospitals weekly after ingesting button batteries, Yahoo News Australia said.

To confirm the identity of the items, the doctors performed an esophagoscopy. The reports revealed the baby had not swallowed button batteries, but instead, two coins.

“There was no evidence of esophageal stricture or perforation,” researchers wrote. “Two layered coins can mimic the radiographic appearance of a button battery and are indistinguishable based on radiographic density. In one single-centre study of pediatric coin and button battery ingestion, stacked coins were more than twice as common.”

An emergency laryngoscopy and esophagoscopy were performed on the child to remove the money.

Children often have a tendency to swallow things due to natural curiosity. A Texas mother opened up in March about how her 17-month-old daughter died due to complications from swallowing a battery. Trista Hamsmith said on Oct. 31, 2020, she noticed her daughter, Reese, was wheezing. She took the baby to the pediatrician thinking she might have a cold and the doctor said the toddler was having croup. The next day, the mother noticed a button battery was missing from a remote control. Suspecting her baby may have swallowed it, the toddler was rushed to an emergency room. A CT scan revealed the baby had a hole in her esophagus and trachea. The child died on Dec. 17, 2020.