Children getting jewellery stuck up their noses and pencils wedged in their ears cost the NHS nearly £3million a year
- Jewellery, toys, pencils and cotton buds have ended up inside children’s noses
- There were 8,752 nasal and 17,325 ear foreign bodies in kids from 2010 to 2016
- Curiosity and a ‘whim to explore orifices’ is the usual reason behind it happening
It’s a nightmare for parents, takes only seconds and can lead to hours of stress in hospital.
And children jamming foreign objects into their noses and ears also costs the Health Service nearly £3million every year.
Jewellery was the most common item to end up stuck but youngsters also pushed in toys, pencils and cotton buds.
A study revealed that a total of 8,752 nasal and 17,325 ear foreign bodies were removed from hospital patients from 2010 to 2016. The vast majority of cases were children aged from one to nine.
This averaged out at 1,218 nasal and 2,479 aural, or ear, removals each year at an annual cost of £2.8million to NHS England.
Jewellery was the most common item to end up stuck up children’s noses but youngsters also managed to push in toys, pencils and cotton buds. File image used
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Jewellery made up 40 per cent of cases for children. For objects in the nose, paper and plastic toys were the next most common.
Cotton buds and pencils were the other items most often put in ears. The study said youngsters did this from ‘curiosity, a whim to explore orifices and accidental entry of the foreign body’.
Author Dr Simon Morris, an ear, nose and throat specialist in Swansea, said surgeons have retrieved ‘pretty much anything that fits’ from children.
He added: ‘I’ve seen green peas, ‘googly eyes’ and polystyrene balls from bean-bags.’
The study called Will Children Ever Learn? used hospital data and was published in The Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons.
A study revealed that a total of 8,752 nasal and 17,325 ear foreign bodies were removed from hospital patients from 2010 to 2016. File image used
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