A boy who swallowed this foreign object caused a perforation of his stomach, such a thing should not be allowed to play-Health and Life

Foreign body accidents in young children are often very life-threatening if not treated promptly.

Children are often very curious about the world around them, they often like to put things in their mouth. In the case of swallowing corrosive objects such as batteries, magnets, it will cause great consequences. Recently, the Department of Gastroenterology, Shandong Maternity and Children’s Hospital, affiliated to Shandong University, China received a case of a child swallowing a foreign object.

Accordingly, the boy named Hao Hao (5 years old) appeared with persistent pain in the abdomen for 8 hours. When the family found out, they rushed to take the child to the hospital for examination. After taking an X-ray, the doctor discovered that there was a foreign body in the stomach, which needed endoscopic treatment to remove.

At this time, Doctor Cao Phong received the patient. Looking at the X-ray film, based on his experience, he surmised it could be a magnet. After that, Doctor Cao quickly decided to do endoscopic treatment to remove the foreign body.

During the endoscopy, Doctor Cao realized that the foreign body had punctured the stomach, a very dangerous situation: “If the emergency is a little later, the consequences will be extremely serious.”

After that, Dr. Cao continued to endoscopy in the stomach cavity and found a silver foreign body. Then, he used tongs to pull out, the process took less than 10 minutes and was successful.

After that, taking an X-ray of the abdomen, Doctor Cao was surprised to see that another magnet entered the small intestine and could not be brought out through the endoscope. Fortunately, however, this magnet presses on the intestinal wall tissue.

“Need to give the baby medicine to promote excretion, hopefully the magnet fiber will be discharged. In the case of not being able to get out, surgery is required. Dr. Cao said.

Finally, on the 8th day of admission, the magnet came out, the child was then discharged.

Why are magnets so dangerous?

Doctor Cao said that the magnetic particle magnet, also known as the “buckyball”, is a type of spherical magnet that is loved by children. It is small in size, easy to change the shape at will.

Buckyball toy.

If children swallow these types of magnets, the magnetic particles are capable of attracting each other in different parts of the digestive tract, pressing on organs, causing ischemia, leading to necrosis, intestinal perforation. Even these particles cause compression, intra-abdominal infection, toxicity, and life-threatening illness.

Most children may not have obvious initial symptoms after ingesting a magnetic particle, or have mild symptoms for several hours to weeks, followed by persistent abdominal pain. persistent or intermittent, nausea, vomiting…

Because the child is young, it is not possible to accurately describe the symptoms of the disease. Some parents also believe that this foreign body will be excreted through the bowel, which leads to delay in treatment.

Dr. Cao once again reminds parents that most foreign bodies in the upper gastrointestinal tract occur in children, such as fish bones, coins, button batteries and toys.

Children can not accurately say their condition, without clear digestive symptoms will easily lead to omission, misdiagnosis, very serious consequences.

Parents need to raise a sense of care, avoid children coming into contact with these dangerous objects, and correct bad habits when children like to put things in their mouths.