An Ohio mom of eight shared on Facebook how honey saved her 3-year-old daughter after she swallowed a battery from a Barbie doll.
Katie Jacobsen said her 3-year-old daughter, Maggie, told her she swallowed something shiny, according to WEWS-TV.
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Jacobson said the doll her daughter had been playing with had a damaged battery compartment that popped open.
“I saw the Barbie doll she’d been playing with, and she’d been playing with my 8-year-old son. They were kind of sitting around the coffee table together, and his eyes got real big. And he looked at me, and he said, ‘I just took one of those out,’” Jacobsen told WEWS-TV.
Jacobsen, in a panic, started getting ready to head to the hospital. Then her 16-year-old daughter found information online about how honey could help people who ingest batteries.
The family had ordered Cracker Barrel earlier that night, and it came with biscuits and lots of honey.
“So, I sat in the back with her by her car seat, and I just kept giving her – we took the extra packets with us – and I just kept giving her more packets of honey on the way,” Jacobsen said.
At the hospital, the X-rays showed that Maggie did ingest a battery, but thankfully, it wasn’t stuck in her esophagus; instead, it was in her stomach.
Dr. Joseph Locono, a pediatric general thoracic surgeon at Akron Children’s Hospital, told WEWS-TV the family did everything right.
“They were able to get the honey in. Not only did the honey stop the conduction or slow the conduction of the battery but also kind of grease a little bit to pass through,” Locono said.
“(A battery) can erode through the first layer of the esophagus, the mucosa, within a couple of hours,” Locono told WEWS-TV.
According to Locono, it’s crucial to get a child who has swallowed a battery to the hospital for an X-ray as soon as possible, but if they are a year or older, honey can help slow down the erosion process.
Maggie was admitted to the hospital overnight for testing, but the battery passed even further down her intestine, where it’s not so much of a threat. So, she was released, according to WEWS-TV.