Button Battery Safety

Button and coin batteries power everything from remote controls to hearing aids and greeting cards — and a swallowed or inserted one is a fast-moving emergency. Here’s how to keep them away from your baby and what to do immediately if you suspect an ingestion.

Call the National Battery Ingestion Hotline at 1-800-498-8666 or Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 immediately — even without symptoms. Don’t wait, and don’t induce vomiting. A battery lodged in the esophagus can cause severe damage in as little as 2 hours.

Button batteries — especially 20mm lithium coin cells like CR2032, CR2025, and CR2016 — are the most dangerous. Prevention is your best protection: secure battery compartments and store spare or used batteries out of sight and reach. If ingestion or insertion is suspected, call for help immediately rather than waiting for symptoms to appear.

Why Button Batteries Are So Dangerous

According to the National Capital Poison Center, a swallowed button battery that becomes lodged in a child’s esophagus can generate an electrical current that produces a caustic chemical reaction with saliva, causing severe tissue damage in as little as two hours. This is significantly faster than most other swallowed objects, which is why immediate action matters so much more here than with most choking or swallowing incidents.

Preventing Access

Never leave loose batteries sitting out, and store spare batteries — along with any batteries set aside for recycling — out of sight and out of reach of babies and young children.

Check the battery compartments on household items your baby can reach: remote controls, key fobs, hearing aids, small toys, cameras, watches, kitchen scales, singing greeting cards, and similar small electronics. Favor products where the battery compartment needs a tool or a deliberate child-resistant mechanism to open.

Be especially cautious with any battery about the size of a penny or larger — 20mm lithium coin cells (often marked CR2032, CR2025, or CR2016) are responsible for the most serious injuries.

Safe Disposal

Wrap used batteries securely (for example, in tape) before throwing them away, and keep them out of reach until they’re disposed of. Recycling is preferable to trash disposal where a local option is available.

If Ingestion Is Suspected

Call the National Battery Ingestion Hotline (1-800-498-8666) or Poison Control (1-800-222-1222) immediately — do not wait for symptoms, and do not induce vomiting.

The National Capital Poison Center’s guideline notes that for a child able to swallow, honey may be given in small amounts (about 2 teaspoons every 10 minutes) on the way to the emergency room, but only within 12 hours of swallowing a lithium coin cell, and only while already heading to the ER — never in place of, or as a delay to, emergency care.

If a Battery Is Inserted in the Nose or Ear

Watch for pain or discharge, and seek prompt medical evaluation. Don’t apply nose or ear drops of any kind until your baby has been examined by a physician, since fluids can worsen a battery-related injury in these areas.

Sources

This guide is based on published guidance from the National Capital Poison Center’s button battery ingestion triage and treatment guideline (poison.org) and public safety information from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. It’s provided for general education and does not replace immediate contact with Poison Control or emergency services.

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