'She was screaming and crying': Warning over children swallowing magnetic toys

Melody Bailey had to be rushed to hospital after she swallowed small magnetic balls, as ITV News Northern Reporter Hannah Miller reports

The mother of a six-year-old girl who was left "screaming in pain" and needed surgery after swallowing small magnetic toys, is warning other parents about the dangers they can pose.

The UK’s top paediatric surgeons are also urging people not to buy the toys, which are often used to mimic piercings or are little magnetic balls, as they can be swallowed easily and can do enormous damage - often leaving children needing life-saving surgery.

One of those children was Melody Bailey, who tried to copy what she saw on social media to create mock piercings on her lip.

After four days of increasing pain, she had to be rushed to hospital.

"I saw this thing on TikTok where you could make it look like you've got a piercing on your lip," she told ITV News, sitting next to her mum, Jane Bailey.

"So I tried it but then I actually swallowed them. I tried it one more time , but then I swallowed them again."

She had swallowed two sets of two small magnetic balls, which burned holes in her bowel that needed to be stitched up, leaving her with a scar on her stomach.

"She was really in a lot of pain by then, and she was screaming and crying," said Ms Bailey.

The Children’s Surgery Foundation issued a warning last month after a five-fold increase in children swallowing the small, often brightly-coloured and increasingly powerful magnets in the last five years.

Surgeons also urged schools to ban the magnets, regardless of the age of pupils, and warned that some children had accidentally swallowed them after copying influencers on social media, just like Melody.

Figures from four major hospitals in south-east England found that 251 children were admitted after swallowing foreign objects between 2016 and 2020. Of these, 37% were coins (93 cases), 21% were magnets (52 cases) and 17% were button batteries (42 cases).

Hemanshoo Thakkar, consultant paediatric surgeon at Evelina London Children’s Hospital said: “During this period, there was a five-fold increase in the number of children who swallowed magnets, most of which were brightly-coloured matchstick-shaped pieces found in children’s building sets.

“More than 40% of the children needed surgery and in half of the cases the children experienced complications as their intestines had holes in them, which led to infections.

“This year alone Evelina London has seen 15 new cases of children swallowing magnets and have operated on seven of them, a couple of whom were very unwell.”

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Just 2% of children swallowing button batteries required surgery, but 42% of those who swallowed magnets required either keyhole surgery (laparoscopy) or more invasive laparotomy, which involves incisions in the abdominal wall to gain access to the gut.

Mr Thakkar said surgeons had also seen children who had accidentally swallowed the magnets after copying influencers on social media, who used them to create false piercings on their tongues and cheeks.

Mr Thakkar said: “If children swallow one magnet it will probably pass through their body harmlessly but if they swallow two or more magnets, especially at different times, the magnets, which are increasingly very powerful, are forced together in the intestines, squeezing the tissue so that the blood supply is cut off.

“Significant damage can be caused within hours with holes being made in the children’s intestines which cause the children to be unwell, and sometimes seriously ill, with many requiring complex operations to remove the magnets and requiring long periods of recovery time in hospital.”

NHS England has also called for a ban on these types of magnets in toys because of the dangers they pose.

TikTok say they actively remove dangerous posts and have stopped showing results if someone tries to search for this type of content.