LITHIUM BATTERY DANGERS POSE EXTRA THREAT TO CHILDREN

By Desiree Miller, www.BottlestoBritches.com

Parents know babies are curious and nearly everything they touch ends up in their mouth, including dangerous things like coins or batteries. What most parents don’t know is there’s an increased threat with certain kinds of batteries found in items all over the house, many of which are well within a child’s reach.  From your TV remote control to your garage door opener to your bathroom scale or even musical greeting card, the round lithium battery commonly used in household gadgets could pose a lethal threat to your little one.

Cara and Terry George want to get the word out about the danger.  Their 18 month old daughter Brenna died after ingesting a battery that they didn’t know she swallowed. “We scoured our house and we have no idea where it came from,” her father explains.  The couple now works to build awareness about these batteries and the threat they carry.  It’s the best way for them to honor Brenna, Cara believes.

They are not the only ones fighting to protect other children.  Safety groups want parents to know lithium batteries are more than a choking hazard.  The batteries can still produce a charge inside your child’s body and damage internal tissues and organs.  Dr. Toby Litovitz with the National Capital Poison Control Center explains the damage would be similar to dropping Drano in tiny drops down the child’s esophagus.  The Poison Center gets calls involving about 3500 cases of battery ingestion each year and the calls are now more serious than ever, with 13 deaths and 73 severe injuries…injuries that can lead to feeding or breathing tubes, or death. The number of incidents involving lithium batteries is on the rise, climbing from just one percent to 18 to 20 percent in the last decade.

Groups such as the International Association for Child Safety and the National Capital Poison Control Center are working to build awareness about the dangers; hoping parents will take steps to keep these batteries away from children.  They want companies using these batteries in their products to put warning labels on the packaging where parents will see them.  They are also asking manufacturers to change the battery compartments to help protect children.  The recommendation is to change those compartments to require a screw.  Their statistics show 62% of children are getting the batteries right out of the gadgets and the hope is that will change if they are harder to remove.  Meantime, Colleen Driscoll with the IAFCS says parents can be sure to store the batteries out of a child’s reach.  “They can secure junk drawers and be sure not to toss them in a trash can, where children have been known to find them in the past,” Driscoll says.

Cara and Terry George want others to understand the risk is real.  They truly hope others will learn from their heartache.  Cara explains their work now is done in Brenna’s name, “Our only hope is to save lives and if we can give one child his or her future and spare one family this unimaginable pain and devastation then we’ll be doing something for her.”