They’re bright. They’re squishy. They look like something designed to touch, play with or even eat … to a toddler. But they’re deadly and you’re probably keeping them easily accessible to your children. Meet the newest danger in the kitchen and laundry room: dishwasher and laundry detergent pods.
They first showed up on supermarket shelves in 2012 in the United States. They make filling the dishwasher and washing machine even easier, which for busy parents is a good thing. But they’ve been linked to minor skin and eye complications, ventilator-dependent respiratory failure and even death.
A new study examined data from the National Poison Data System, which collects information from all U.S. poison control centers, and found more than 17,000 phone calls made to PCCs for pediatric exposure to laundry pods from January of 2012 to December 2013. Not surprisingly, exposure was highest among 1- to 2-year-olds. The most common route of exposure was ingestion, although ocular and dermal exposures were also commonly cited.
The most disturbing piece of information from the recent study is that in 42.3% of reported exposure cases, the pods were stored within sight of the children. As a parent, it’s hard to know all the dangers lurking around the house. Open toilet seats used to freak me out because my husband, a pediatrician, had seen more than one newly ambulatory, top-heavy toddler tip into a toilet and not make it out alive. Locked up cabinets, pool fences, doggie door screens – they all work in conjunction with attentive caregivers to ensure the safety of little ones.
But there will always be new dangers that appear with product innovation. With our rapidly changing health-care system, busy pediatricians may not always ask families about the presence of perilous pods in the home. Beginning in April of 2013, packaging warnings and opaque wrappers have helped to lessen toddlers’ exposure. The authors of the study, published in the magazine Pediatrics (2014;134[6]:1127-1135) are calling for international safety standards for laundry pod packaging and labeling as well as voluntary product safety standards, public education and potential product reformulating to lower the severity of exposure complications.
Until that happens though, keep your cabinets locked and hide the brightly colored, liquid-filled capsules from curious kids and innocent pets – or don’t use them at all. This is one case where bad things can and do come in small packages.
Debra Rich Gettleman is a mother and blogger based in the Phoenix area. For more of her work, visit unmotherlyinsights.com.
