[Editor’s note: When local mom Jill Koziol came to us with her story of her daughter’s health was endangered by ingesting a detergent pod, we felt strongly in publishing her personal essay about the ordeal in order to inform other parents. We are grateful to her for her work to bring about action on this issue via the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the ASTM Laundry Detergent Packets Voluntary Standards Committee. Today, she will speak before Congress on the issue as well. Please take a moment to read her story and share it with anyone in your life who has young children at home.]
Life happens in a split second and that’s all it took for my almost 9-month-old daughter, Cate, to pull herself up to the top of the laundry hamper and take a bite into a laundry detergent pod that I’d set there just a moment before. I should have known better—just like the more than 10,000 parents last year alone whose children ingested a detergent packet.
Cornell Medical PICU alone had three cases in the two months before Cate was admitted for treatment. Upon hearing Cate gag and seeing the packet on the floor I immediately called poison control and soon after Cate began vomiting, I called 911. We were at the Pediatric ER within 20 minutes of the incident and Cate initially appeared stable. However, she was intubated before my eyes a couple hours later for airway protection. “Nightmare” does not begin to describe this experience.
I’m writing to share this personal experience and spread the word on the dangers of laundry detergent packets. Perhaps you’ve seen the news recently since the release of a new medical study in the journal Pediatrics. The bottom line is that, for decades, laundry detergent exposure has been no big deal in children. But these detergent pods are different because of the concentrated nature of the chemicals in them and the way in which they explode. In 2012, and through the end of 2013, more than 17,000 children under the age of 6 ate or inhaled the contents or squirted concentrated liquid from a packet into their eyes. This amounts to one child every hour being exposed to these detergent pods, a very different order of magnitude than other hazards.
Consumer awareness is key. Please, please, please take precautions and share information with friends and family that these laundry detergent packets are more appealing to little ones and are far more dangerous than typical liquid or powder detergent. Luckily, our sweet Cate was released from the hospital within three days and endoscopy showed no damage from the detergent. We were lucky. Cate is back to normal though mommy may never quite recover from the ordeal.
I’m working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the ASTM Laundry Detergent Packets Voluntary Standards Committee on how to help prevent other families from experiencing this nightmare through consumer education and hopefully individually wrapping the detergent packets. I’ve also recently been invited to speak at a press conference on February 26 with Congresswoman Speier and Senator Durbin–they are introducing legislation to address this issue.
Please do your part and share this story and educate yourself and others—these links provide great info:
pediatrics.aappublications.org
aapcc.org/alerts/laundry-detergent-packets
Jill Koziol is a local mother of two and the co-founder of HoneyBee Child.
