Parents warned to keep medicines, berries and reed diffusers away from children

People have been warned to keep medicines, button batteries and reed diffusers out of reach of children over the holiday period.

Emergency departments in hospitals across the country can get busy with injuries caused by accidents over Christmas.

Healthcare professionals are asking that people look out for hazards before having guests over, or while they are visiting others’ homes during the festive period.

Medicines, cleaning products, alcohol left in glasses, essential oils and reed diffusers should be packed away or placed out of reach.

Button batteries can be pulled out of musical cards, books, novelty Christmas decorations, and LED candles.

As well as being a choking risk, they also have harmful chemicals in them.

Edel Duggan, director of the National Poisons Information Centre (NPIC), said that while they are not a common query, if ingested they can cause major problems and so they are of particular concern this time of year.

She said: “They can be an obstruction hazard, but if you have two button batteries, or a magnet and a button battery, that can cause inflammation in the feeding tube going down into the stomach and in the stomach and cause a perforation.”

For families with young babies, the advice is to reduce their exposure to other people at this time of year – and even ask someone with respiratory symptoms not to visit.

People who are visiting a home with a young baby are advised not to give the baby a kiss and to wash their hands before holding them.

Ms Duggan said due to a high volume of respiratory illnesses this Christmas, dosing errors and children taking medication left out are common inquiries.

“So paracetamol and your painkillers, because this time of year there’s a lot of coughs and colds, and particularly at the moment, there seems to be a lot of a paracetamol inquiries and nurofen,” she told the Press Association.

“So sometimes, if there’s different ages of kids in the family, you might have a six plus years in Calpol, and then the younger child comes along and takes a drink out of it and or else they mix up the bottles between one and the six plus is given to the younger child.

“It is very useful if parents write down the doses and just double check them, to try and prevent that kind of an error.

“Or sometimes one parent will give the Calpol and then another might come along and give the second dose without realising the first dose has already been given.

“If you have a log of what’s been taken, for us, when we’re calculating the dose if an extra dose is given, just to calculate that it’s based on the weight of the child and how much has been taken, whether we need to send them in for a paracetamol level or not.”

She said reed diffusers should be put up somewhere high where children can’t reach.

“It’s the fluid that’s in it and the ingredients that are in it that sometimes can cause a problem,” she said.

“It’s probably left in places that might be accessible to kids, and they just pick it up and they drink the liquid.

“So sometimes there’s an alcohol content in it, that they can drink and they can be a bit drowsy, and then sometimes there’s essential oils in it, and depending on the type of essential oil that’s in it, it can cause a problem.”

She said that small red berries such as those from holly, which can look attractive to kids, can also cause problems and advised people to know what is in their garden and home.

“Usually when we get called, (we’re told) ‘it’s a red berry’, so sometimes we’re just basing it on symptoms and trying to figure out what it is. So if they’ve taken a picture of it, sometimes that can help identify what the berry is.”

She said that almost all parts of a yew tree are toxic and the seeds from the berries of the tree can affect the heart and can cause seizures.

“So that would be a particular worry for us if we get a call about a yew berry that’s being chewed.

The fleshy part is okay, so if you ingest it and don’t bite down on it, and it’s ingested whole and passes through, it won’t cause too much of a problem. But if it’s chewed, the seeds are toxic.”

Professor Conor Deasy, who is president of the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine, warned that an oversight during the busy festive period can lead to a trip to the emergency department.

“Spending Christmas in the Emergency Department with your child is not what anyone would wish for,” he told the Press Association.

“Some children end up in the Emergency Department over Christmas for injuries or illnesses that are preventable – they ingested grandparents’ medications, or they swallowed a button battery, or they fell down an unguarded flight of stairs – there is an infinite number of ways children can harm themselves.

“It is very hard on parents who, with all that is going on over the festive time, can take their eyes off the child, to disastrous consequences.

“The recent HSE guidance on injury and illness prevention issued by the HSE is sensible and practical and well worth a read for parents.”

The HSE’s mychild.ie website has information for parents and parents-to-be, including common conditions and child safety.

The Poisons Information Line is 01-809 2166, and is open from 8am-10pm over Christmas.