Doctors from the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow have highlighted danger surrounding liquid detergent tablets commonly used in washing machines and dishwashers after children have been found to be mistaking the detergent capsules for sweets.
Dr Lyndsay Fraser, from the hospital spoke at length to the BBC saying that, “We have known for some time about the risk of eye injuries from kids squeezing these liquitabs until they burst.
“What we have seen more recently is that children are biting into the tablets, presumably because they think they are sweets as they have the same soft texture and bright colouring.
“The alkaline chemicals in the liquitab cause an immediate chemical burn, causing breathing problems as the airway starts to swell rapidly.
Dr Fraser said that if these children had not reached the hospital on time, their airway “could have closed over completely with potentially fatal consequences. Getting them (the children) to hospital straight away is imperative. In most of the cases seen so far we have had to insert a breathing tube to protect the child’s airway from the swelling and help them breathe.”
“Once the breathing tube has been inserted, children can be on a ventilator for anything up to two weeks whilst the swelling settles and one child so far has required further surgery to repair the damage caused by the liquitab.
“It really is only good fortune that we haven’t seen a death resulting from this type of injury.”
Dr Fraser went on to highlight that these detergent capsules were not sold in a childproof container making it easy for children to gain access to them.
Our advice is the same as it would be with any other harmful cleaning products or chemicals, keep them away from young children and ensure that especially small children cannot get access to these sort of products.
There have also been reports of similar events in the US concerning Tide “Pods” that children have also mistaken for sweets or candy and it is, in our opinion, basic common sense that these kinds of potentially harmful detergents are kept well out of the reach of children irrespective of how they may look.