Dramatic rise in number of children ingesting foreign objects, says study

When a battery is swallowed, it can trigger a series of chemical reactions

There has been a dramatic rise in the number of young children ingesting coins, toys and other foreign objects, including potentially fatal button batteries, a new study has found.

According to the report, which was published today in the journal Pediatrics, the rate of foreign-body ingestions among children under the age of 6 in the United States nearly doubled between 1995 and 2015, rising by about 92 percent during the 21-year study period — and increasing by about 4 percent annually.

“It is a very upward trajectory,” said Danielle Orsagh-Yentis, the lead author of the study and a