The number of children being sent to the emergency room after swallowing small lithium batteries – also known as “button” batteries – has more than doubled in the last decade, a new study has found.
A report published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics found that, between 2010 and 2019, more than 70,000 children visited the ER, due to injuries from swallowing or inserting button batteries into the mouth, the nose or the ears. That’s compared to about 68,000 pediatric battery-related incidents from 1990 to 2009.
