A consumer expert has provided an urgent warning to Britons trying to stay warm without using their energy this winter - amid a terrifying cost of living crisis.
A hot water bottle may-well seem like a cheap and cheerful solution to keep warm without having to crank the heating up, but they pose significant dangers, even leading to hospitalisation through burns and scalds.
Alice Beer took to Monday's edition of This Morning, speaking out about the dangers of hot water bottles - after she was said to have been contacted by a parent on social media, whose child suffered significant third-degree burns following a water-bottle split.
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Alice then spoke about how this issue is becoming more and more commonplace, adding that Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, see admissions from these types of scenarios at least once per week. She said: "Half of hot water bottle injuries need skin grafts and surgeries. These are not surface burns, these go really deep."
An advocate for safety, Alice has warned users against the cheap devices for a number of years now - and asking that if people do opt to use them, they should check the dates on the product. This is because a normal hot water bottle with typical usage is said to last up to three years.
After that period has expired, people should in-turn look for a new replacement.
Outlining how to identify the dates, she explained: "Inside you have got a daisy wheel date. It's got 12 segments and in the middle of this one you have got a 22. This one was made in 2022.
"Then you have 12 segments around the outside and those are the months. You can tell the month it was manufactured from when the dots end. It's got dots in eight segments so it was made in August."
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