For convenience, some companies have developed colourful, single-use packages of detergent, but small children find them attractive and are sometime seriously injured or poisoned by them.
Study describes serious risk
A study conducted in the United States found that 17,230 children under the age of six had unhealthy exposure to these pods in 2012-2013. Some ate the pods and then suffered vomiting, trouble breathing and trouble staying awake. Others had skin or eye injuries. There were two deaths.
Canadian reports have previously described corneal abrasions and burns when detergent from the pods has come in contact with eyes.
In this latest study, two thirds of those exposed were one- and two-year olds.
Pods have bright colours like candy.
“These (pods) have bright colours, they have pretty patterns. When you feel them, they’re soft and squishy. If I were a child, it would look like the perfect item to put into my mouth,” said Dr. Marcel Casavant of Nationwide Children’s Hospital and co-author of the study.
Casavant, said a change in packaging by one company led to a 25 per cent drop in incidents of exposure.
The risk is so serious that he and the other researcher recommend families of children under the age of four avoid buying the laundry pods and instead, switch to the regular liquid or powder detergents.
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