Water beads are popular and lots of fun to play with, but some parents and experts warn they pose a hazard for young children who may swallow them.
Meghan Holohan
When Letty Rief began vomiting every 30 minutes, her mom Hannah Rief worried she accidentally ate something. They later learned the 14-month-old ingested a small water bead, which grew in her intestine and blocked it.“Water beads are everywhere and they’re colorful and they look like candy,” Rief says. “I want this to get out to where everybody’s aware of the dangers.”A few years ago, Rief’s older daughter received some water beads as a gift.
“From the CT scan they could see the obstruction,” Rief says. “They really couldn’t tell what it was because it was very similar to the color of the intestine. It was radiolucent. It was transparent and there were a lot of questions and a lot of unknowns with it.” Letty's story is similar to other children's. The shiny, colorful appearance makes them to attractive to toddlers; if swallowed, they can expand and become potentially deadly, safety experts say.
The product was marked as a choking hazard, and had the regular warning of “keep away from small children,” Haugen says. “We explained to Abigail and we set the girls up. They had separate play areas. So, we thought we were safe.” “Over the course of a couple weeks, it became clear that something was wrong with her,” Haugen says. “She wasn’t answering to her name anymore. She wasn’t eating her favorite foods. She wasn’t sleeping well. She lost all the speech that she had.”
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