Keeping button batteries and magnets away from kids

A button or coin battery can burn through a child's throat in as little as two hours. From 2011 through 2021, swallowed or inserted coin batteries sent an estimated 54,300 people to the emergency room and killed 27. Small, high-powered magnets are a danger too, because two or more swallowed magnets pull together inside the body. Taking them out often means surgery to repair the stomach and intestines.

Batteries

• Check each remote, key fob, game controller, toy and musical greeting card for a coin battery
• Keep anything with a battery cover that opens without a tool out of children's reachA battery cover that takes a tool, or two separate movements, to open keeps a coin battery out of a child's hands.
• Repair or get rid of anything with a broken battery cover
• Keep spare batteries in their child-resistant packaging, out of children's reach
• Tape over both ends of a used battery with electrical tapeTake the taped batteries to a battery collection site rather than leaving them in a drawer.
• Check your pills before you take themAdults have swallowed coin batteries mistaking them for pills.
• Never let a child play with a coin battery

Magnets

• Keep small, high-powered magnets away from children of every ageThey can be eight times stronger than the magnets in toys, and teens swallow them too.
• Know the signs of a swallowed magnetWatch for stomach pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

If a child swallows one

• Go to the nearest emergency room right away
• Call the battery hotline, 800-498-8666, or Poison Help, 800-222-1222, on the way
• Give honey on the way for a battery swallowed in the past 12 hours, if the child is at least 12 months oldGive 10 milliliters, about 2 teaspoons, every 10 minutes, for no more than six doses. Never stop to get honey before leaving.
• Get to a doctor right away for a swallowed magnet tooSwallowed magnets often need surgery, and several magnets can look like one on an X-ray.