What should I do if I encounter a child who eats randomly?

Recently, I saw a news that a 9-year-old boy bloated and felt uncomfortable after accidentally eating an olive-shaped magnet, and parents searched for home remedies online to let the boy eat leeks to promote excretion. The boy's condition did not improve, and the parents then took the boy to the hospital emergency department. With the help of endoscopy, the emergency doctor removed the magnet for the child.

In daily life, it is quite common for children to eat foreign bodies by mistake. Some smaller foreign bodies with smooth edges, such as chewing gum, plastic buttons, etc., can generally pass through the digestive tract smoothly and excrete with feces after being accidentally eaten by children, and will not cause serious digestive tract symptoms. If it is some special, sharp foreign body, such as batteries, magnets, fish bones, etc., it may cause serious complications such as perforation of the digestive tract, intestinal obstruction and intestinal fistula. For foreign bodies in the digestive tract, we can use X-rays to understand the location, morphology and size of foreign bodies.

Five magnets in an X-ray

In fact, pay attention to observe that we have more or less magnet products in our homes: children's toys, refrigerator stickers, etc. When my nephew was a child, he had a fondness for the seven-colored round wooden refrigerator on my refrigerator, pulling it down and sucking it up, so that he could play for an afternoon, but we also stared at him all the time. If the child only accidentally eats a small magnet, there are often no serious complications. If the child swallows several small magnets, or eats magnets and other metals by mistake, the magnets or metals that stay in different positions are adsorbed together, and this attraction can lead to intestinal adhesions, ischemia, obstruction, necrosis, and even perforation. If the magnet stays in the esophagus or stomach, the doctor can clip it out through endoscopy. If endoscopic extraction of the magnet fails, or if the magnet has reached the intestine, the child needs to be closely monitored for abdominal pain, vomiting, and defecation, and if the child has signs of peritonitis, surgical exploration may be required.

In life, parents encounter children who eat foreign bodies by mistake, do not listen to home remedies, and should go to the hospital immediately. At the same time, it is also necessary to cultivate the good habit of children not to eat indiscriminately and prevent problems before they occur.