Parent Advocate and Doctors Coauthor Case Study Urging Ban on Water Bead Toys

A case report describes a 13-month-old's unintentional ingestion of water beads, which led to serious medical problems requiring surgery.  Ashley Haugen, the child’s mother and president of That Water Bead Lady INC., collaborated with physicians Elizabeth Friedman MD, MPH from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine and Irina Duff, MD, PhD from Johns Hopkins University to coauthor the case report, “Intestinal Obstruction and Neurotoxicity Associated with Water Bead Ingestion,” published in the February 2025 Pediatrics and online on Jan. 28.  Haugen’s child ingested older sibling's toy water beads and began to experience symptoms such as vomiting, facial dermatitis, and lethargy. Surgery and a diagnostic procedure ultimately removed the water beads from the child’s intestines, but the child continued to experience long-term impacts. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission data, more than 7,800 water bead-related ingestion injuries were treated in emergency departments in the U.S. from 2016 through 2022, as well as the death of a 10-month-old girl in 2023. The authors recommend that physicians incorporate reporting product-related injuries as a routine pediatric care protocol, call for a ban on the sale and marketing of water bead toys, and emphasize the need for clear ingestion warning labels on all products containing water beads.

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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.