Consumers groups launch button battery safety campaign following death of 2 Australian kids who swallowed tiny batteries

Several groups in Australia and parents are pushing for a safety campaign against button batteries following the death of two children who died after they swallowed the tiny batteries. Weekly, about 20 Aussie kids are rushed to hospital emergency departments after ingesting batteries.

Supporting the campaign is Allison Rees, whose 14-month-old daughter Isabella swallowed a button battery in February 2015. The battery, about the size of a 10 cent coin, lodged in the tot’s oesophagus and caused the baby to suffer internal burns and cardiac arrest that led to Isabella’s death.

To protect other families from a similar tragedy, Rees is asking for stronger product safety laws, reports The Herald Sun. Besides Isabella, whose family lives in Victoria, a four-year-old child in Queensland also died from ingesting a button battery.

Choice, Kidsafe and The Parenthood seek a mandatory standard for all products powered by button batteries to have a secure, screwed down battery compartments, not just for toys for kids below three years old. The groups also pushed for compulsory child-resistant packaging and clear warnings upon buying the product.

Susan Teerds, chief of Kidsafe Queensland, points out that moistened button batteries, when ingested, could cause a chemical reaction and burn through tissue. She compares it to swallowing drain cleaner.

The rise in number of devices using small batteries is accompanied by a hike in injury data. The Queensland Injury Surveillance Unit reports the children brought to emergency departments for battery ingestion rose by 85 percent to 50 in 2013 from 27 in 2012. Latest data state that for the first six months of 2014, 37 kids underwent treatment for battery ingestion.

Rees shares that they were unaware that Isabella swallowed a button battery and could not trace to this day where the battery came from. She opened Bella’s Footprints, a Facebook page, to alert families on the danger of button batteries.