This amazed me! A paramedic has revealed how honey could potentially save your child’s life, if they’ve swallowed a deadly button battery. Nikki Jurcutz, a mother, routinely posts parenting advice on social media, such as what to do if your child is choking, they have a fever or how to administer medicine to fussy kids. Jurcutz, the founder of Tiny Hearts Education, a website that offers newborn first aid and delivery classes, recently posted a stomach-churning video to Instagram. The mother, who lives in Australia, explained what to do if you fear your child has eaten a button battery, which the Child Accident Prevention Trust describes as a “strong lithium coin cell” (CAPT). These batteries are lethal to children if swallowed, with the CAPT noting: “Button batteries…can badly hurt or kill a small child if they swallow one and it gets stuck in their food pipe.” Toys, remote controls, gaming headsets, bathroom scales, and novelty products like flashing wands and singing cards all include them. Jurcutz said: “I was asked recently if there was any truth to giving honey if you suspect your child had swallowed a button battery. I did some research and found it’s in fact the first aid treatment guideline in some countries, so I absolutely had to test it myself. “I bought two button batteries and put one in each sausage,” says the author. One sausage received 10 milliliters of honey every 10 minutes, while the other was left alone. I let it sit for two hours before removing the button batteries from each sausage.” She shares time-lapse footage, which shows the meat filled with honey bubbling and spewing liquid. But surprisingly, Jurcutz continued: “With the first one that I was applying the honey to, you can see that it has a small amount of damage. But look at this one which had no honey. The damage is significantly worse. “If I ever suspect my kids have swallowed a button battery, I’ll definitely be reaching for the honey.” The science behind this was explored in a study using pigs, published in the Laryngoscope journal in 2018. Anfang RR et al’s study found similar results as they compared the effects of apple juice, orange juice, Gatorade, Powerade, pure honey, pure maple syrup, and Carafate against 3V lithium button batteries. “Our recommendation would be that parents and caregivers give honey at regular intervals before a child reaches a hospital, while clinicians in a hospital setting can use sucralfate before removing the battery,” said co-principal investigator Ian N. Jacobs, M.D., director of the Center for Pediatric Respiratory Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), AAPpublications reported. Explaining more about her own experiment, Jurcutz captioned the Instagram video: “Button battery + honey. Today I conducted an experiment to test if adding honey to a button battery would reduce the damage caused. “The results are stunning. In some countries this is a normal first aid treatment – 10 milliliters of honey, every 10 minutes on the way to the hospital (>1 year). “This should be introduced in Australia!!! I know if I ever suspected one of my kids had swallowed a button battery, I’d reach for the honey right away! “Tag away, this could significantly reduce the damage to a child’s esophagus and even save a life.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the most common cause of battery-related injuries in children younger than 13 years is “button batteries, especially those larger than 20 millimeters in diameter (coin size), which can become lodged in the esophagus, leading to serious complications or death.” Statistics collected between 1997-2010 found that 40,400 children were hospitalized for button battery injuries. The CDC report continued, “Nearly three-quarters of the injuries involved children younger than 4 years of age; 10 percent required hospitalization. In addition, a 2.5-fold increase in these cases was observed from 1998 to 2010. Fourteen battery-related deaths were identified, all in children younger than 4 years. Button batteries were confirmed to be involved in 12 of the 14 cases.” In the United Kingdom, a 2-year-old girl named Harper-Lee Fanthorpe died May 23 after swallowing batteries from a remote control, according to a June 14 inquest into her death. Jurcutz’s video struck a chord with parents after it was uploaded to TikTok on Wednesday and reached nearly two million views. https://washingtonnewsday.com/world/if-a-child-swallows-a-deadly-button-battery-a-paramedic-reveals-how-honey-can-save-their-life/?amp=1