Conference moira::parenting_v3

    Just to let you know that at an EMT we have been called several times
    for children swallowing "foreign objects", pennies, paper clips, etc
    but were in no obvious distress.  I would stongly advise you take your
    child to the Emergency room.  My reasoning here is the penny, in all
    likelyhood is larger in diameter than your child's bowl can stretch, I
    would also have concerns it may have actually been *inhaled* into the
    lung as opposed to actually swallowed!  Either way the question of
    toxicity comes into play.
    
    If it were me, solely as a parent, I would push real hard for an Xray,
    just to establish first if it were actually inhaled, and secondly it's
    actual location in the body.
    
    Good luck.....this is how parents grow grey hairs!!
    Lyn

    	How could a kid inhale a penny and not be in distress?  Even
    	if you just inhale a few drops of water you end up having a
    	coughing fit.  A penny would not only cause coughing and hacking,
    	but would most likely be quite painful as well.
    
    	I don't think there is any alarm.  Have you ever seen the size
    	of your kids bowel movements?  Certainly they can be of a larger
    	diameter than a penny.  And with a penny there are no sharp edges
    	like there could be with a slightly-opened paperclip.
    
    	Toxins?  The radiation absorbed from an unnecessary x-ray should
    	be more concern to you than the traces of copper (which is a
    	necessary mineral anyway) that you would absorb for the few days
    	it is in your digestive tract.
    
    	Make a cup of tea instead and calm down.
    
    	Later explain to your kids that money is handled by so many
    	different people, and therfore can be dirty.  Someone could
    	have found the penny on the ground before it made its way to
    	you.  It should stay out of your mouth.
    
    	Joe Oppelt

    To the basenoter, the weekend has passed, has the penny?
    
    Which route did you end up going?
    
    Lyn

    I don't know about anybody else, but as a child I swallowed more 
    change than I could count, including pennies, nickels and quarters.
    The quarters were a little hard to swallow, but with a little gagging
    and choking they finally made into my stomach.  I'm not sure if
    they where ever passed, but I do not that I'm no less the worse
    for wear. 
    
    I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about it.  My main concern 
    would be my child actually swallowing the coin.  If she's passed that
    stage, I'd relax.
    
    

Joe, the problem with toxicity and pennies is not the copper.  Pennies
are not 100% copper.  I haven't looked for the note yet, but another note
was entered a couple of years ago (or so) which talked about toxicity with
pennies made before a certain year (like 1958 or something).  The article
talked about *puppies* who became ill because of eating pennies, and a noter
copied the info into notes.

       Carol

Pennies are copper and zinc.  The formula was changed several years ago so
that it's mostly zinc now.  During WWII there were steel pennies (1943?) and
pure copper pennies (1944?) made from shell casings.

re .-2:

Do you set off metal detectors in airports?

    Good question ;^)  Haven't set one off yet.  So I guess it's
    safe to assume I passed the coins.  Wish I could tell the basenoter
    how it came out, 8^), but I can't remember that part. 

 >Wish I could tell the basenoter
 >how it came out, 8^), but I can't remember that part. 
    
    I've always heard coins come out very clean and shiny!
    
    :^)
    
    Just my $.02,
    Jodi-

Hi - been really busy, but needed to give you an update.  I must admit I was
a bit concerned when I read the first reply before leaving Friday night.  All
the way home I was envisioning X-rays of a penny in my daughter's lung and
trying not to think of how anyone might go about extracting it !  When I 
got to pick her up she was her usual bouncy self and showed no signs of 
anything amiss.  After keeping a close watch on her that evening I decided
to wait the weekend out and see if it passed.  The first time she had a
bowel movement she looked at me really strange when I was "examining" it.
When I told her I was looking for The Penny, she said...

But Mama, I have lots of pennies upstairs in my piggybank ! :-)

Well, it finally did pass on Monday so I guess I can relax that this particular
crisis is over.  I'm also so thankful that she is such an honest kid ( at least
for now ), its helpful to know I can take her at her word and a little 
amazing to me how youngsters seem to inherently know when something should
be reported to a grown-up.  If only we could keep the "fear of reprisal"
emotions away which make them clam-up in later years.

Thanx again for all your replies

Sharon

re: .9

>The first time she had a
>bowel movement she looked at me really strange when I was "examining" it.

	The only thing that is more amazing than what kid do,
	like swallowing pennies, is what their parents do.

>When I told her I was looking for The Penny, she said...

>But Mama, I have lots of pennies upstairs in my piggybank ! :-)

	Well, times are tough, right.

	Happy things "worked out" for you

Clay

    I too am glad things have "worked out" for both of you.
    
    I do need to apologize though, for sending you home Friday night in a
    state of terror.  That definitely was NOT my intent.  (please forgive
    me on that one?)  I guess from where I'm coming, in this case more as
    a trained medical person, than mother, I came accross a little more
    strongly than I ought to have been.
    
    Give that young'un of yours and extra big hug from me!
    
    Lyn

Lyn,

No problem - if anything your advice made me at least be more aware that
it could be a serious problem and made me be a little more observant
than I probably would have been.  Also, it did make me more committed
to my instructions to her of not putting thing into her mouth, because
worse things can happen.  Although my imagination did run away with me
a bit, your note did help me get a more appropriate level of concern.

Apology unnecessary but accepted with thanks.

Sharon

    I am currently taking a first aid/cpr course.  I asked the EMT teaching
    the course about swallowing coins.  He said not to worry - as long as
    the airway is open, the coin will pass.
    
    Mary
    

    re .13, my intent was not to imply the airway might not be open, that
    would be immediatley apparent.  But to imply that something could be
    inhaled into the lungs causing a condition called "aspiration
    pneumonia", which could take a few days to become symptomatic.
    
    also check the note and discussion number 199, generated by my
    experience with a choking child.  It's very nice you are taking the
    initiative for a CPR course.  There were some definite changes made
    over the last year in protocols.
    
    Lyn (the EMT/mom)
                                                                  

    I thought another issue with pennies was stomach acid dissolving the
    ZINC core of the penny.  Yes, its copper clad but is the copper coating
    intact, expecially at the edges?  Somewhere I read that the zinc issue
    is not a joke.  Does anybody have more info on this?
    
    Jeff

    Considering that Naturopaths strongly recommend zinc to help ward
    off infections, what is the worry ?
    
    Stuart

>    Considering that Naturopaths strongly recommend zinc to help ward
>    off infections, what is the worry ?

What a straight line!  But seriously, I believe the effects of zinc
overdose are relatively mild -- on the order of stomach upset.  Of
course, if the overdose is large enough -- say a whole piggybank --
there might be more serious problems.

    I am not sure what the toxic level of zinc is.  For example, a certain
    amount of copper is necessary for good health, but too much copper can
    be toxic... the same with zinc as I understand it.  Also, it matters
    whether the zinc is organically bound or free zinc metal.  So the axiom
    'if a little bit is good, then more must be better' is, in many cases
    simply not true.
    
    Jeff