They may be convenient, but those recently introduced, brightly colored, sweet-smelling laundry detergent pods are proving dangerous to children who mistake them for candy.
Emergency calls from parents whose kids have eaten the concentrated laundry pods are rising across the country, and in Georgia.
For the first four or five months of this year, the Georgia Poison Center received 23 emergency calls about kids ingesting the pods, according to center director Dr. Gaylord Lopez. From May until now, the center has gotten 33 more calls.
"It's more than doubled in about a month," Lopez said.
He said in the last two days alone, the Poison Center sent three children who bit into the packets to the hospital to be checked out.
"Parents need to be extra careful about keeping the packets well out of reach of small children," Lopez said
Jessica Sutton's daughter bit into one of the packets that had fallen off a laundry shelf in May.
"She was throwing up, she was crying, she had detergent all the way down her body. It was not good," Sutton, of Mableton, told Channel 2 Action News. "It's very scary because they said it could cause the throat, tongue and lips to swell where they can't breathe."
Other symptoms can include nausea, vomiting and drowsiness — and they can come on immediately, Lopez said.
He recommended that parents first call the Poison Center at 1-800-222-1222.
"We can tell you right then and there what needs to be done," Lopez said. "Many of these cases can be managed at home."
Detergent companies said they are evaluating how to make the lightweight single-use pods more kid-resistant.
