Throughout the year, we see ingestion of all sorts of things in the pediatric ER! Infants and toddlers put things in their mouth and their nose and in their ears. They will eat everything from button batteries to coins to Legos; pills that are dropped on the floor…you name it, they will eat it!
This particular x-ray was sent to me by the mother of a 17-month-old girl because she wants to share the story of what her daughter decided to ingest. This particular mother, who has a curious little toddler, had taken all the precautions she had been taught to child-proof her house. She did all the outlet covers, the gates, the stove knobs, the door stoppers…you name it, she had done it and she thought she was covered.
Christmas came along. They started to put up the decorations and she was even mindful as they put up the Christmas tree. She anchored the Christmas tree to the wall so that it wouldn’t fall down if her daughter happened to pull on it. She made sure that it was only plastic or soft ornaments in the bottom half of the tree, so if her daughter was to get hold of them, nothing could break or cause her any injuries. She thought she had it all covered…
She didn’t think about the Christmas Ornament hooks that she had used for years prior. So this curious little 17-month-old girl pulled off a couple of the ornaments from the bottom part of the tree and ingested one of the hooks. You can see the hook stuck into the esophagus. She rightfully brought her to the emergency room…which is exactly where you should go if you think your toddler or child of any age has ingested anything. We want to help you with this kind of stuff! The x-ray showed the hook was stuck in the esophagus. She ended up needing to have it scoped and plucked out by a surgeon.
So what should you do? Should you use these kinds of ornament hooks? It’s a tough call. The likelihood of a kid eating this is probably pretty small but it’s definitely there. Our bodies do let a lot of things just pass through because most things that can eat don’t necessarily cause an issue but if they get stuck in the esophagus, it can be a huge issue. So if you have a toddler, this can be a concern.
One of the things that you can consider would be to take your ornaments and hang them with a little piece of string. We have some of our ornaments from when my daughter was younger that we carried over and they’re still on little bits of string.
Alternatively, check out the safety hooks featured in my store here!
Be safe out there!
Dr. Free N. Hess
Featured Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels
