Laundry detergent pods pose a serious poisoning risk for young children, a new US research has warned.
One young child per day was hospitalised in 2012 and 2013 because of pods, said researchers, who recommend households with young children use traditional detergent instead.
Laundry detergent pods began appearing on US store shelves in early 2010, and people have used them in growing numbers ever since, researchers said.
The small packets can be tossed into a washing machine without ever having to measure out a liquid or powder. The convenience, though, has come with risks for young children.
A new study from researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital found that from 2012 through 2013, US poison control centres received reports of 17,230 children younger than 6 years of age swallowing, inhaling, or otherwise being exposed to chemicals in laundry detergent pods.
"That's nearly one young child every hour. A total of 769 young children were hospitalised during that period, an average of one per day. One child died," researchers said.
One and two year-olds accounted for nearly two-thirds of cases. Children that age often put items in their mouths as a way of exploring their environments.
Children who put detergent pods in their mouths risk swallowing a large amount of concentrated chemicals. The vast majority of exposures in this study were due to ingestion.
"Laundry detergent pods are small, colourful, and may look like candy or juice to a young child," said Marcel J Casavant, a co-author of the study, chief of toxicology at Nationwide Children's Hospital and medical director of the Central Ohio Poison Centre.
"It can take just a few seconds for children to grab them, break them open, and swallow the toxic chemicals they contain, or get the chemicals in their eyes," said Casavant.
Nearly half (48 per cent) of children vomited after laundry detergent pod exposure. Other common effects were coughing or choking (13 per cent of cases), eye pain or irritation (11 per cent), drowsiness or lethargy (7 per cent) and red eye or conjunctivitis (7 per cent).
"It is not clear that any laundry detergent pods currently available are truly child resistant; a national safety standard is needed to make sure that all pod makers adopt safer packaging and labelling," said Gary Smith, the study's senior author and director of the Centre for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital.
"Parents of young children should use traditional detergent instead of detergent pods," said Smith.
