2024-04-15 09:36:14
Health pediatric surgeons warn
Magnetic toys can be dangerous for little ones
Status: 15.04.2024 | Reading time: 2 minutes
Quelle: dpa/Jan Woitas
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Puzzle pieces, cubes, balls: children often swallow magnets while playing. Doctors warn of dire consequences, sometimes even fatal. Like a 20 month old girl earlier this year.
Pediatric surgeons warn about dangers of magnetic toys. Swallowing small beads or cubes with a strong magnetic attraction could have fatal consequences in the worst case, explained the director of the pediatric surgery clinic at Jena University Hospital, Felicitas Eckoldt, in the run-up to the event German Surgery Congress in Leipzig.
“Swallowing multiple magnets or one magnet and a piece of metal is extremely dangerous,” Eckoldt said.
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The attraction of magnets in different parts of the gastrointestinal tract could reduce blood flow in an area and holes could form in the intestinal wall. Such magnets are advertised, for example, as material for 3D puzzles, said Eckoldt, or as construction toys for adults and teenagers. However, cases show that it repeatedly ends up in the hands of smaller children.
Fatal accident involving magnetic toys
According to Eckoldt, there are no statistics about such events in Germany. However, the warning has a current reason: At the beginning of the year, a 20-month-old girl died after suffering from vomiting, diarrhea and dehydration on several occasions. Magnets would have caused an acute intestinal obstruction, triggered by the pressure of the magnets’ attraction on the intestinal walls. The child had apparently swallowed several magnets at different times. In 2018, the Bavarian regional association of the Child Protection Association and the Bavarian State Ministry for Environmental and Consumer Protection reacted to the death of a four-year-old child and warned parents.
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It is important to pay attention to the age limit when it comes to toys Test mark to pay attention. CE marks are an indication that manufacturers have tested their own products. However, according to Eckoldt, GS marks that are awarded by an independent testing agency are better. In general, small, very strong magnets do not belong in the hands of children.
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