TOLEDO, Ohio — So many things distract us and take our attention away from our kids, but ProMedica Toledo Hospital has a warning you don't want to miss.
Hospital leaders want you to know that it doesn't take much for an accident to happen.
How about a drink of some fruit juice? Perfect for kids, right?
You can see apples and pears are all over the label, but this is actually a bottle of floor cleaner.
Imagine what kids would think!
Or how about Kraft Parmesan cheese and Comet bleach?
They have the same color green and even the same shape of canister.
Safe Kids Toledo set up a table inside ProMedica Toledo Hospital last week to let people know that these mix-ups can be deadly, if you leave common household products within kids' reach.
"It was about a million calls about poisonings last year and 9 out of 10 of those were in the home, for children under 6. So that's really the audience that we're focusing on is those younger kids who are starting to explore everything," said Mike Smith, an injury prevention specialist with Safe Kids and ProMedica.
The goal was to catch the attention of ProMedica employees walking by or even patients passing through, to warn that labels on certain foods can look too much like potential poisons.
The table caught the eye of one woman walking by, who wanted to know more about child safety devices that were on the table, that everyone should have in their home.
Many of us also use Tide Pods to wash our clothes and they are still a big danger because of how much they look like candy.
"It can cause some serious damage to the food pipe, or the esophagus, and it's definitely one of the things that we have to look for in kids," said Dr. Sara Barnett-Hamen, a pediatric hospitalist at Toledo Hospital.
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These accidental poisonings don't just happen at home.
Dr. Barnett-Hamen remembers a case she helped out with years earlier, when a family was making s'mores in a camp fire.
"And they put gasoline in a squeeze water bottle so that they could easily keep the fire going. And the 5 year-old didn't realize that there was gasoline in that water bottle," she said.
The child took a long sip from that water bottle and the gasoline caused an extensive lung injury.
The child was on life support until pulling through.
There were more possible mix-ups on the table.
Rubbing alcohol and Fiji water have the same color liquid and almost the same shape of bottle.
There was also a bottle of mouthwash that looks a lot like blue flavored kids' drink.
Injury prevention specialist Mike Smith says the most important thing parents or grandparents can do is to keep the potentially poisonous products locked up or up high in your home.
"Hopefully they change their behavior. It's a pretty easy fix, just keep stuff up and out of reach. If they don't see it, it doesn't grab their attention. They don't want to go after it," Smith said.
If your child gets a hold of something that could be poisonous, call the Central Ohio Poison Center at 1-800-222-1222.
There's also an app called Web Poison Control that you can download for free.
