This Site. Google Scholar. AAP News 33 6 : 4. Connected Content. A related article has been published: Fatal attraction : Small magnets causing serious injuries, deaths in children. Cite Icon Cite. The American Academy of Pediatrics offers these safety tips:. Keep all small magnets and tiny cubes away from anyone younger than Regularly check toys and play areas, including carpeting, for dislodged or lost magnets.
Most Read. COVID vaccine for children ages receives final approval. Column collections. Topic collections. News Latest News Archive. A potentially life threatening TikTok trend, involving tiny magnets that can be easily swallowed, has triggered the NHS to call for a ban.
These tiny magnetic balls are widely sold as creative toys, with a recent TikTok craze seeing them used as fake facial piercings by teenagers.
The viral prank sees people place two magnetic balls either side of their tongue and wiggle it around, creating the illusion that their piercing is real.
The NHS issued a patient safety alert after at least 65 children were admitted to hospital for urgent surgery in the last three years after swallowing magnets. The magnetic objects are forced together in the intestines or bowels, squeezing the tissue so that the blood supply is cut off.
Because it's voluntary, some manufacturers do not even have warnings. The burden of prevention falls solely on parents and caregivers. Be aware of the dangers and be sure children do not have access to these powerful rare-earth magnets. Were you fascinated by magnets as a child? The invisible, magical force between them that either slapped them together or never let them meet, no matter how hard you tried? You could play with them for hours, twirling them in your hands, taking them apart and putting them together again, letting them slide across the floor or table towards one another.
Like many children, you probably didn't know that swallowing magnets could hurt you. But back then, most magnets were too big to swallow anyway. Today, magnets are very common, much more powerful, and even more appealing to children than they used to be. They are shiny, smooth, round, small and colorful. Often sold in packs of many tiny magnetic beads, they were marketed as fun toys for older children, teenagers and even adults.
These small, powerful magnet sets are extremely attractive to children. And, they are extremely dangerous to swallow. For children, magnets also may be available as toy building sets where the magnet pieces are covered by plastic in various shapes.
Magnets were commonly marketed for teenagers and young adults as fake jewelry and piercings. Poison Control receives a lot of calls after people swallow these fake, magnetic tongue piercings; the magnets were slippery when covered with saliva! The most common magnets for children to swallow are those marketed for adults.
These small, high-powered magnet sets are sold as sculptures, stress relievers and as desk toys to help with office boredom. Sets of more than tiny magnetic balls can be molded into many different shapes. Until recently, they were widely available for purchase in a variety of stores and over the Internet. Videos displaying different ways to play with them are widespread on websites like YouTube.
More and more children have been swallowing the tiny "adult toy" magnets, leading to severe injury and even death. When a child swallows two or more magnets, the magnets can attract and meet each other within the child's body, causing digestive tissue to be trapped between them.
This cuts off blood supply to the stomach or intestines. These internal injuries can be life-threatening. The same thing can happen when a child swallows even one magnet and an object that can be attracted to it, like a coin or button cell battery. The majority of the patients were children.
Some required surgery to remove the magnets. A few had permanent damage to the digestive tract. To date, one child has died.
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