Two brothers, aged 7 and 4, who swallowed magnets, were successfully operated on at the Almaty Regional Children's Hospital. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Sputnik Kazakhstan.
The children were brought to the hospital after they became restless and complained of continuous abdominal pain. During examination, several magnets were found in their gastrointestinal tracts.
The foreign objects had entered different parts of the stomach and small intestine of the 4-year-old child. According to doctors, even when the magnets were apart, they attracted each other and were compressing the intestine. Skilled specialists removed 15 magnets from the child's stomach. The remaining 14 magnets were found in the small intestine.
In addition, during surgery, doctors also removed a congenital small pouch-like outgrowth in the child's intestine, known as a "Meckel's diverticulum." Thus, a total of 29 magnets were extracted from the child's body.
As for the older child, three magnets stuck together were found in his large intestine. Doctors performed laparoscopic surgery, using a special surgical technique to move the magnets to the area of the cecum and remove them from there.
"The main advantage of this approach is that it allows foreign objects to be removed without directly cutting the intestine. Moreover, it aims to reduce the size of the surgical incision, lower the risk of additional intestinal damage, and facilitate the postoperative recovery period," say the specialists.
According to Askar Kanazov, a surgeon at the Regional Children's Clinical Hospital, the children accidentally swallowed the magnets while playing at home. Their parents promptly called an ambulance and sought medical help. The children were admitted to the hospital approximately 5 hours after swallowing the magnets.
Today, the children have recovered and were discharged home after 9 days. Doctors warned that if there is any suspicion that a child has swallowed magnets, even if no symptoms are observed, it is necessary to seek medical help immediately.