Question

Discussion Topic: What is the primary cause of fatal ingestions in children younger than 5 years of age? Discuss button battery ingestion.

Answer 1

Primary cause of fatal ingestion in children younger than 5 years:

Fatal ingestion in children younger than 5 year old is very common and unintentional.

Children are susceptible to fatal ingestion at this age because of their curious and exploring nature and propensity to put virtually everything in their mouth. When children are leaved unattended for long time this chance is become more.

Common fatal ingestion agents in high-income countries include pharmaceutical, household chemicals ; in low and middle - income countries pesticides, kerosene, cleaning agent and pharmaceutical are commly involved.

Button batter ingestion :

Button batteries, also known as disc batteries, are tiny, round batteries commonly present in numerous household electronic gadgets such as watches, calculators, cameras, hearing aids, penlights, remote control devices, and certain toys. Because of their easy accessibility to children, they pose a serious menace of accidental ingestion or inhalation. Most of the ingestions are benign. However, large-sized button batteries when ingested can become impacted in the esophagus or elsewhere in the gastrointestinal tract with life-threatening repercussions.

Normally there are spontaneously excreted by stool in several days. But the child should be monitored by taking serial abdomen skiagrams.

If the battery got impacted in GI tract then surgical management is taken for removing the battery otherwise conservative management and monitoring is done until the battery is excreted by stool.