If Your Child Swallows a Pill Battery, Honey Can Help
Coin or pill batteries are small, shiny, and cause a tingling sensation on the tongue. If you’re a toddler, that puts them in the “belongs in my mouth” category. But a swallowed button battery can burn a hole in a child’s esophagus in a matter of hours, causing pain, serious injury, and sometimes complications leading to death.
New research hints, but does not prove, that one way to limit the damage is to give your baby honey when you rush him to the hospital. Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia placed CR2032 batteries in esophageal tissue samples in the laboratory and in the esophagus of live anesthetized piglets. (The CR2032 batteries, responsible for 90 percent of these injuries, are about the size and shape of a quarter – big enough to get stuck in the esophagus.) In both sets of experiments, honey was able to limit the damage caused by unhealthy health. battery. The researchers tested other substances, including maple syrup, juice, and a medicine called Karafat, but honey did the best.
Based on their findings, the researchers say parents should give honey to a child who swallows a battery. It is still important to get the battery out of the baby’s body as soon as possible, so getting to the hospital urgently should be your top priority. That means, at best, it’s best to drive there while your child is sucking on one of those honey bottles in the back seat.
But this is experimental and we don’t know if it actually works.
Anesthetized piglets are not the same as alert and active babies. “History is replete with examples of medical interventions that have shown promise in animal studies but have failed in humans,” says pediatrician Clay Jones . “I am concerned that the move from pig data to human dietary guidelines is premature, and I would like more accurate data. But I would, of course, understand if a parent gave his child honey, seeking appropriate medical care, if he is over a year old. “
Honey is not recommended for children under one year of age because there is a small risk of infecting a child with infant botulism . (By one year of age, we usually have a fairly good population of gut bacteria that prevents Clostridium botulinum from growing in the intestines.) In an emergency, the risk of botulism may be outweighed by the benefits of honey treatment, but we don’t know yet because we we don’t know yet if honey is really good for you.
For example, can a child suck out enough honey to make a difference? Will honey get in the way of removing the battery? And if a child needs to be anesthetized to remove the battery, isn’t it dangerous to fill his stomach with honey?
“I expect that for real people with real swallowing, the benefits will be minimal or completely disappear,” says emergency physician Stuart Spitalnik. But no one is going to test it by giving the kids batteries and checking what is going on.
Both doctors agree that honey is probably not very dangerous in a battery emergency, but if you try it, you should understand that it is experimental and not a reason to delay treatment.
“There is always a hidden downside … useless or minimally beneficial treatments that waste time, are fraught with the danger of delay, and the added danger of false assurances that treatment has begun, leading to further delay,” says Spitalnik …
Bottom line: he would take honey on the way out if he had at home, but he would not waste time going to the store. I would probably do the same.