Surgeons in Prykarpattia saved 7-year-old boy who swallowed 17 magnets

In Ivano-Frankivsk, doctors operated on a seven-year-old boy after 17 magnets were found in his body. After the surgery, the child spent ten days in the hospital and was discharged home.

The director of the regional children's clinical hospital, Taras Melnyk, reported the incident on Facebook.

According to him, the child was taken to the hospital with complaints of severe abdominal pain. During the examination, it turned out that the boy had swallowed neodymium magnets the day before. After additional diagnostics, the doctors decided on an urgent operation.

As Taras Melnyk explained, to save the child, the surgeons had to remove part of the small intestine. The boy underwent a laparotomy, resection of the affected intestinal fragment with the formation of an entero-enteroanastomosis and suturing of the small intestine perforation.

The child's condition is currently assessed as satisfactory. On the tenth day after the operation, the patient was discharged from the hospital for further recovery at home.

What are the dangers of ball magnets

Ball magnets pose a serious danger if a child swallows more than one of them. Unlike other small objects, magnets are able to be attracted to each other even through body tissues.

When several magnets end up in the gastrointestinal tract, they can connect with each other, pinching the intestinal walls between them. As a result, this leads to tissue damage, the formation of holes in the intestine (perforation), internal bleeding and inflammation.

In addition, "glued" magnets can block the lumen of the intestine, causing intestinal obstruction. This condition is life-threatening and often requires urgent surgical intervention.

Recall that a girl who received extensive burns as a result of an accident on a heating network in the capital on January 2 was transported to Germany for further treatment.