As you’re shopping for the kids on your nice list, there are some gifts you may want to avoid. Every year during the holiday season, emergency rooms see a spike in kids with injuries related to toys.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reports that there were an estimated 145,500 injuries treated in emergency rooms and 11 deaths associated with toys in kids ages 12 and younger in 2022.
Some toys are risky, others are downright dangerous and according to emergency medicine doctors, these are the top toys that send kids to the emergency room during the holidays.
- Water beads - This sensory toy is popular and fun for kids to play with, but they can be incredibly dangerous. The beads are made from a super-absorbent material that expands when wet and kids have put them in their nose and ears or swallowed them, and they can continue expanding in the body. They can cause serious injuries, like bowel obstructions, or even death, so the experts advise avoiding them or keeping them away from kids under five.
- Any toy with button or coin batteries - These flat, tiny batteries can be a choking hazard and a 2022 study finds that the rate of children’s ER visits for battery-related injuries has more than doubled in the last decade. Swallowing them can cause life-threatening chemical burns and sticking them in the ears or nose can cause permanent hearing or breathing issues.
- Toys with magnets or magnetized sets - Little kids love putting things in their mouths and these small cubes, balls or tiles can connect in the body, which could result in intestinal blockages, perforations, infections, blood poisoning and death.
- E-scooters and hoverboards - These send kids to the ER with injuries ranging from bruises to broken bones. One Christmas morning, one doctor treated seven hoverboard injuries in just a few hours.
- Toys with loose or small parts - The majority of the 11 toy-related deaths reported in 2022 were from choking or asphyxiation from small toy parts, according to the CPSC.
- Trampolines - Over 90% of trampoline injuries happen to kids, mostly those between the ages of five and 14, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
Source: Today
Photo: Getty Images