Water bead-related ER visits among kids rose over 130% between 2021 and 2022: Study

(NEW YORK) — Pediatric water bead-related emergency room visits increased over 130% in one year, a new study published in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine shows.

Water beads are small balls of polymer that can expand up to 100 to 1,500 times in size when they come in contact with water, according to the National Capital Poison Center.

From 2021 to 2022, an estimated 8,159 ER visits involving patients under 20 years old involved water beads, the study found. Forty-six percent of the cases involved water bead ingestion.

Researchers from Ohio and Missouri analyzed data collected between Jan. 1, 2007, and Dec. 31, 2022, and found that children under the age of 5 were the most commonly seen patients in emergency departments.

The data showed that all water bead-related ER visits involving kids under 5 involved the ingestion of a water bead, while ER visits for patients in other age groups involved a water bead-related eye injury or a water bead inserted into other areas of the body, including the ear canal or nose.

“The number of pediatric water bead-related emergency department visits is increasing rapidly,” Dr. Gary Smith, a senior author of the study and the director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, said in a news release.

“Although swallowing objects and putting them into an ear or the nose are common among children, water beads pose a unique increased risk of harm because of their expanding properties, and they’re hard to detect with X-rays,” Smith said.

Smith and the study’s co-authors called for stronger federal regulation of water beads and a revision of toy safety standards.

In May, three U.S. senators introduced Esther’s Law, legislation that would ban the sale of water beads marketed as toys, require warning labels on water bead packages and direct the Consumer Product Safety Commission to consider further water bead regulation. The legislation, which was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and has not yet been voted on, is named after the late Esther Jo Bethard, who died in July 2023 at 10 months old after swallowing a loose water bead.

Major retailers like Amazon, Target and Walmart announced at the end of 2023 that they would stop selling water beads due to the risk of injuries and death among children.

The CPSC also warned in March that water beads, along with narcotics, are two growing risks, especially for young children. The federal agency recommends water beads be removed from any environment where young kids are present, that children shouldn’t be allowed to play with them unsupervised, and that water beads be secured in containers and in areas were children can’t easily access them.