Button batteries, sometimes called coin batteries, are small round batteries that power various electronic devices such as watches, remote controls or small kid toys. They are small and shiny, which is why young children will sometimes grab them and put them in their mouths. But they can cause severe injury in a child if the button battery becomes lodged in the digestive tract.

In this episode, Dr. Savithiri Ratnapalan talks about the dangers of swallowing button batteries, what parents can do immediately at home, and how button battery ingestion is managed in hospital.

Dr. Savithiri Ratnapalan is a pediatric emergency physician at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

She co-authored a practice article with Dr. Amy Zipursky. It is published in CMAJ: https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.210572

Podcast transcript: https://www.cmaj.ca/transcript-210572

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