Energizer’s safer Child Shield button battery comes to Australia – Pickr

Parents need to be extremely cautious when handling batteries around children, but a new type of button battery is designed to make it easier to detect when a child is trying to taste or swallow a battery.

Batteries come in all shapes and sizes, but the smaller the battery, the greater the potential for danger to children. Children often put things in their mouths unexpectedly, and that can mean a trip to the emergency room to prevent or reverse damage.

But we need batteries for electronics and gadgets. Non-removable batteries are one solution, improvements in child safety are another. Making it harder for children and parents alike to open the battery compartment is one example of how battery manufacturers are improving this area, but it is not the only one.

We first heard about Energizer's child safety improvements in May, when the company developed a battery that changed the color of saliva to let parents know that a child had tried to eat the battery, causing their mouth to turn blue. This is in addition to the nontoxic bitter coating that Energizer's button batteries previously had to protect against swallowing, although this didn't always work.

However, by adding blue, parents can quickly tell if something is wrong, especially if a child comes along and tells parents that the color of his or her mouth has changed.

From there, you may need to go to the emergency room to make sure nothing was swallowed, as a battery can be damaged after as little as two hours. The blue dye should give a clue as to what has happened and prompt a quick response from the parent.

It's worth noting that the dye is non-toxic but reacts to moisture, so if you touch the battery with wet hands, the blue dye will rub off on your hands and potentially everything else in your home. The idea is to alert you if the battery has come into contact with mouth and saliva, thus giving parents a warning that allows for immediate action.

Energizer is now rolling out its Child Shield safety packaging across Australia for several button battery types, covering CR2106, CR2025 and CR2032 batteries, which are also used in the Apple AirTag, among others.