Fall Family Safety Checklist

The new checklist helps to generate awareness about unintended lithium coin battery ingestion among young children

From the LifeMinute.TV Team

September 23, 2021

As fall approaches many families will be visiting their pediatricians for their well-child checkups and flu shots. As part of the alliance between Duracell and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), they’ve developed a checklist to be deployed to 26,000 AAP member pediatric offices to generate awareness, help educate and encourage parents and caregivers to talk to their child’s pediatrician about unintended lithium coin battery ingestion among young children.

Lithium coin batteries are the tiny flat batteries found in household items such as remote controls, candles and many other objects you may not even realize. Young children being curious by nature, may put one of these batteries in their mouth, which can be especially dangerous because a lithium coin battery is about the same diameter as a child’s esophagus. If swallowed, your child may not show any symptoms at first, but the battery can burn through the surrounding tissue in just two hours, causing serious harm.

To help protect against this danger, Duracell has created coated lithium coin batteries with a non-toxic, but extremely bitter coating on the battery cell which is designed to help discourage a child from swallowing it. They also have created the power safety checklist to serve as a tool that pediatricians can share with families including tips to identify the hidden dangers in their homes and educate on how to make the environment safer.

The checklist is an easy-to-share, double-sided, laminated card which parents can also easily share with caregivers. It explains what a lithium coin battery is, what it looks like and the types of devices that commonly contain lithium coin batteries. It also gives you a few simple steps you can take to help make your home safer.  The checklist will also tell you what to do if you suspect that your child has ingested a lithium coin battery and it has a QR code you can scan for more information. It’s also available online at duracell.com and healthychildren.org. You can find Duracell lithium coin batteries with bitter coating at retailers nationwide - look for the bitter taste icon on the packaging.