Parents need to be really, truly careful with batteries around kids, but a new type of button battery aims to make it easier to spot when a child has tried tasting or ingesting a battery.
Batteries come in all shapes and sizes, but the smaller the battery, the more potential to harm kids. Children put things in their mouths often unexpectedly, and it can mean a trip to the emergency room to prevent or undo any damage.
But we need batteries for electronics and gadgets, and so while batteries you can’t remove are one solution, improvements to child safety are another. Making the battery pack more difficult to open for children and parents alike is one example of how battery companies improve this area, but it’s not the only one.
We first heard about Energizer’s improvements to child safety back in May when the company had developed a battery that changed the colour of saliva to let parents know a child had tried to eat the battery, dying a mouth blue. It’s an addition to the non-toxic bitter coating Energizer’s button batteries have previously had to attempt to thwart swallowing, though it doesn’t always work.
With the addition of blue, however, parents can quickly work out whether something is wrong, especially when a child comes over and tells the parent that their mouth has changed colour.
From there, it could be a trip to the emergency room to make sure nothing has been ingested, because battery damage can occur in as little as two hours. The blue dye should provide some alert to what has happened, prompting quick reaction from parents.
It’s worth noting that the dye is non-toxic but does react to moisture, so if you touch the battery with wet hands, the blue dye will rub off onto your hands, and potentially anything else in your home. The point is to alert you when the battery has been in contact with a mouth and saliva, giving parents an alert for immediate action.
Energizer is rolling out its Child Shield safety packaging to several button battery types across Australia now, covering CR2106, CR2025, and CR2032 batteries, the same style used in the Apple AirTag, among other devices.
