Battery Safety

This holiday season make sure the toys you buy your kids are safe. Many products and toys hold batteries that could be hazardous when in the possession of children. Read the information below from Safe Kids Mid-South.

FACT: The coin-sized batteries children swallow come from many devices, most often mini remote controls. Other places you may find them are singing greeting cards, watches, bathroom scales and flameless candles.
FACT: It takes as little as two hours to cause severe burns once a coin-sized lithium battery has been swallowed.
FACT: Once burning begins, damage can continue even after the battery is removed. Kids can still breathe with the coin lithium battery in their throat. It may not be obvious at first that something is wrong. Repairing the damage is painful and can require multiple surgeries.

Safe Kids Mid-South, led by Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, offers these top tips for battery safety:

• SEARCH your home, and any place your child goes, for gadgets that may contain coin lithium batteries.
• SECURE coin lithium battery-controlled devices out of sight and reach of children and keep loose batteries locked away.
• SHARE this life-saving information with caregivers, friends, family members and sitters.

Keep the National Battery Ingestion Hotline number handy. It's 202-625-3333 for additional treatment information.