by Jamil Ragland CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT – US Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Monday joined leaders of the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center to warn parents and caregivers about the potential dangers that specific toys can pose to young children this holiday season.
“This is a very festive time of year with Christmas and Hanukkah coming up in a few weeks, a time of great joy, a time when we’re out buying presents for our kids, and we want it to be a very joyous time for the whole family,” said James E. Shmerling, President and CEO of the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC). “There’s also risk when we’re buying these gifts for our kids. Some are not safe. As the only hospital in the state of Connecticut that’s 100 percent focused on children, this is something that we take very seriously.”
Along with the usual suspects of toys with small parts and other common safety threats that the wrong toys can pose, Blumenthal and Kevin Borrup, the executive director of the Injury Prevention Center at CCMC, highlighted the dangers of water beads and magnets, which children can ingest with the risk of significant internal injuries that are difficult to treat.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), water beads are small, water-absorbing, often colorful balls of super-absorbent polymer that can grow 100 times their original size when exposed to water. They are often sold as toys, in craft kits, as sensory tools for children with developmental disabilities, or for agricultural use.
“These kinds of toys look absolutely harmless,” Blumenthal said. “They’re colored, they’re attractive, and they look like candy. These little toys look like the stuff that you might actually eat. Little does a child know that these can inflate and literally block the body from working.”
When swallowed, water beads absorb liquid inside the body and grow, causing significant and potentially life-threatening internal injuries for small children. CPSC data show that nearly 7,000 water bead-related ingestion injuries were treated in emergency departments in the US from 2018 through 2022. A 10-month-old girl also died from injuries caused by ingesting water beads in 2023.
Small magnets pose another danger, as even though they may be ingested individually, their strong forces of attraction will draw them to each other, potentially pinching delicate internal tissues between them and leading to holes in intestinal lining and other critical areas.
Another perennial danger are button batteries, which can be found in numerous modern gifts, including everything from LED lights to watches and more. The batteries can become caught in a child’s esophagus, and despite not being plugged in, they can still develop a charge that can burn a hole into the throat lining in as little as two hours.
One of the other dangers that Blumenthal discussed is the threat that unregulated toys pose to younger children. Thanks to a loophole known as the “de minimis exemption,” shipments valued at less than $800 enter the United States without duties, taxes, or customs inspections. According to the US Public Interest Research Group’s (US PIRG) annual report, “Trouble in Toyland,” a billion shipments will enter the US in 2024 through the de minimis loophole, including hundreds of thousands of toys and games ordered through internet sellers.
“Direct-to-consumer sales through the internet can come from overseas across borders without inspection, from China or elsewhere, and 80% of those toys sold in the United States come from China,” Blumenthal said. “So the mounting threat of unsafe toys, particularly from China, but from all overseas manufacturers, is one that demands action, and I will be introducing legislation to close the loophole for those de minimis shipments that come across our borders, from China and elsewhere.”
Borrup offered some simple tips that parents can follow to help make the holidays safer, including:
- When buying a wheel or a riding toy, ensure that child safety equipment is also provided, such as helmets, elbow and knee pads
- Ensure that toys and non-toys with button batteries remain out of reach of young children
- Check all the toys that being purchased for children under the age of three in advance for small pieces that can easily break away
- Purchase toys from a reputable retailer rather than at questionable websites
“The most impactful thing you can do as a parent is to give the time to your kids,” Borrup said. “Get down on the floor and play with them, read to them, listen to them. Your time will help your child build the social and emotional skills and protective factors that can provide a lifelong benefit. You can even develop a family game night, the dreaded forced fun that is part of many families and traditions.”