Don’t waste your money, or endanger your child’s health, on jewelry or potions to treat teething.
A recent story reported by the CDC reminds us of a few important lessons about teething, lead, and the kind of jewelry you buy at craft shows. A mom had purchased a handmade “homeopathic magnetic hematite healing bracelet” from an artisan at a local craft show. Her 9 month old daughter wore it on her wrist, reportedly to help with teething symptoms, and occasionally chewed on it (as babies are known to do.) She was found on routine screening to have a blood lead level about 10 times the safe upper limit of safety.
This article originally appeared in Professor Roy Benaroch’s blog, The Pediatric Insider.
Lessons to learn:
Babies really shouldn’t wear jewelry at all (they look good without it!) Some bling is probably OK (like small earrings), but you have to be sure they’re not made with lead. That’s because anything on a baby or near a baby will end up in the baby’s mouth. Seriously, everything. This particular bracelet was doubly-dangerous – looking at the photo, it was made of little beads strung together, which apart from their poisonous lead content were a potential choking hazard. Please, no beads!
Babies should especially never wear any kind of jewelry around their necks. Even a small tug on a necklace can close off the airway and kill a baby. That includes those trendy amber teething necklaces, which are both a choking and strangulation hazard. There are media reports of deaths from those things. Look out for long cords or straps on pacifiers, or cords on window blinds or binoculars or anything else thin and round and shaped in a loop. Anything that could wrap around a neck can strangle a baby and needs to be cut to pieces or kept very far away.
And: teething. Most babies experience teething with no symptoms whatsoever – the only way you know, with most babies, is that you see teeth poking out. An occasional baby might have some fussiness with teething, and you can treat them with love and cuddling, maybe a teething ring, or some acetaminophen if needed. There is no great plague of terrible symptoms of teething that need constant treatment, especially not with dangerous things. Teething is just another thing most parents do not have to worry about.
Other dangerous teething “cures” have included “homeopathic teething tablets” which contained poison, and benzocaine-containing teething gels (now mostly off the market) that caused a potentially fatal blood disorder. The sad thing here is that none of these were ever really needed—they’re marketed based on fear of a normal, harmless condition. Don’t waste your money, or endanger your child’s health, on jewelry or potions to treat teething.
