Nearly two years after a report warned that children were swallowing batteries at worrying rates, Energizer is launching a new battery designed to alert parents if their child has swallowed a battery.
The new lithium button battery features safer packaging, a non-toxic bitter coating that prevents ingestion, and “color alert technology” that activates a blue dye when the battery comes into contact with moisture, such as saliva, to help parents and Caregivers know that medical attention may be required.
The new battery was announced last week in a video by Energizer and Trista Hamsmith, whose 18-month-old daughter died after swallowing a button battery from a remote control.
Ms. Hamsmith founded a nonprofit organization focused on child safety, successfully pushed for legislation, known as the Reese’s Law, that would require a secure compartment for batteries in products that use them and stronger warnings on all packaging , and is now working to make the batteries themselves safer.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, swallowed coin or button batteries result in thousands of emergency room visits each year. She points out that “if a child swallows a battery, the consequences can be immediate, devastating and fatal.”
“A coin cell battery can burn a child’s throat or esophagus in just two hours if swallowed,” the agency said.
Safe packaging and bitter coatings for batteries have been around for a long time, but “the big breakthrough here is the color alarm technology that helps alert caretakers that something has happened,” said Jeff Roth, global category leader for batteries at Energizer, in an interview on Wednesday.
“The most important thing is to get help early,” he said. “This is exactly what the color alarm technology allows the family to do.”
Children who swallow button or coin batteries are at great risk because the batteries generate electrical current when they come into contact with bodily fluids such as saliva. The current can burn through body tissue and lead to life-threatening complications or even death.
According to Reese’s Purpose, the nonprofit organization founded by her mother, Reese Hamsmith “underwent countless surgeries and scopes and was intubated under sedation for 40 days” before she died in December 2020.
The National Capital Poison Center in Washington, D.C. recommends against inducing vomiting if a battery is suspected to have been swallowed. Instead, parents of children at least one year old should give them honey immediately and on the way to the hospital. Honey covers the battery, delaying burns in the surrounding tissue. Because honey is not safe for children under 12 months, parents of younger children are strongly advised to get an x-ray immediately.
Dr. Scott Rickert, chief of the pediatric otolaryngology department at NYU Langone Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital, said time is of the essence when a child swallows a battery.
“It’s really one of those things that once you realize there’s a button battery somewhere in a child’s body, it becomes an emergency,” he said, calling it a “time bomb.”
Dr. Rickert said Energizer’s new battery is a good first step, noting that “pediatric ENT research has gotten a lot of traction to help change some of the packaging and increase the safety of these batteries until that Battery design is completely redesigned, there is still a risk.”
Coin and button batteries pose hidden dangers, said Nancy Cowles, executive director of Kids in Danger, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the safety of children’s products.
Children often swallow them without seeing it, so parents are unaware of the medical emergency taking place in their home, Ms. Cowles said, calling the battery’s blue dye alarm “the most innovative thing here” because it tells parents that their child swallowed one.
Trista Hamsmith said in an interview Tuesday that the color alert may have completely changed Reese’s story, as the family had no idea the baby had swallowed a battery when she became ill in October 2020. Ms. Hamsmith and her family took the little girl to the clinic. Her doctor mistakenly diagnosed her with croup because the symptoms of swallowing a button battery, which include drooling, fever and difficulty drinking or swallowing, “mimic croup almost to the smallest detail.” she said.
The family brought Reese home and noticed the remote control battery was missing. They took her to hospital again and “that was the start of our nightmare,” Ms Hamsmith said. In total, Reese used the battery for just over 30 hours.
“We went to the doctor within four hours but we had no way of finding out what was in there. We had no way of informing the doctors,” she said. “So the blue dye, the color alarm technology, is a game changer until we find another battery that creates the solution.”
Kirsten Noyes contributed to the research.
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2024-04-25 23:50:55
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