Pediatric emergency medicine physician Meghan Martin shared the top 5 Christmas gifts that she believes can lead to children ending up in the emergency room.
She warned against button batteries, water beads, electric scooters and hoverboards, trampolines, and magnets, explaining the potential dangers associated with each item.
She emphasized the risks of choking, intestinal blockage, and injuries from motorized vehicles and trampolines. (Trending: Judge Announces Historic Ruling In Jeffrey Epstein Case)
Martin advised parents to be cautious and avoid these items to prevent potential harm to children.
1. Button batteries:
“There are fatalities every year, unfortunately, from button batteries,” she said.
“These are hard in some cases to get completely rid of.”
“But obviously, especially with young kids and even sometimes pets, they are something to keep a close eye on just because they do have such a great potential for injury.”
“It can happen very quickly.”
“You can start having tissue damage within about 15 minutes. Within a couple of hours, it can go all the way through the esophagus into major blood vessels from the esophagus into the airway.”
“This can be life-threatening — and even if you figure it out, sometimes it can be too late,” she said.
2. Water beads:
“Water beads can be choking hazards if they’re kind of expanded,” Martin said.
“But if they’re not expanded and they’re ingested, they can swell in the GI tract and cause things like obstructions or something called an intussusception,” she added.
3. Electric scooters and hoverboards:
“We’re giving kids the power to kind of go fast and we know that kids don’t always make the best decisions,” Martin said.
“So a helmet does help with head protection, but it doesn’t fully eliminate the risk of injury.”
“Same thing with hoverboards,” Martin said.
“They can get going a little bit fast. We see so many kids fall on these, especially right after Christmas when everyone’s using their new toys.”
4. Trampolines:
“Trampolines can be really fun,” Martin said.
“But there are a lot of risks associated with them and a lot of the injuries that we see in the emergency department are pretty common trampoline injuries.”
“We actually named a fracture a ‘trampoline fracture’ because we see it so commonly associated with trampolines,” she said.
5. Magnets:
“It’s important to realize that these little magnets can be dangerous, especially when they’re swallowed together,” she said.
“That can be dangerous because it can create holes in the stomach and the intestine,” Martin said.
“Those are not places you want holes.”
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