(NaturalNews) The convenient single-use laundry packets that people toss in their clothes washer are posing serious health risks to young children who tend to mistake the colorful, clear pouches--commonly referred to as "pods" as popularized by the Tides Pods brand--as candy or toys.

"Laundry detergent pods are small, colorful, and may look like candy or juice to a young child," said Marcel J. Casavant, MD, chief of toxicology at Nationwide Children's Hospital and medical director of the Central Ohio Poison Center. "It can take just a few seconds for children to grab them, break them open, and swallow the toxic chemicals they contain, or get the chemicals in their eyes."
 

U.S. poison control centers kept busy as children mistake pods for candy

The matter is made worse because young children typically use their mouth as a way to explore the world around them. For these reasons, the colorful packets have unfortunately been keeping U.S. poison control centers busy; the Nationwide Children's Hospital says that from 2012 through 2013, some 17,230 reports of children under the age of six who swallowed, inhaled or were otherwise exposed to the chemicals in the pouches were reported.

Here's a more startling breakdown.

Those numbers translate to about one young child every hour being impacted by the single-use packets. It means that about 769 young children were hospitalized during that period, which is about one child being admitted every single day. It even led to the death of a 7 month-old Florida boy after he swallowed a candy-colored packet in 2013. Of that incident, Dr. Cynthia Lewis-Younger, medical director at the Florida Poison Information Center warns of the ways in which children explore saying, "With young children, any household product is likely to end up in their mouth."

It's also been reported that a New Jersey child died from interaction with such detergents.
 

Frightening health consequences posed by laundry detergents

One woman, Angela Farrell of Levittown, Pa. knows all too well of the dangers of such laundry packets. She used to keep them away from her 18-month-old son on a high shelf, however, one day a packet fell on the ground. Her son put the packet in his mouth but Farrell explains that, "By the time I had pulled it out, he had swallowed its contents."

His health problems set in quickly; by the time the ambulance arrived he was vomiting frequently and having breathing difficulties. Once in the ER, the little boy was using a breathing tube. Fortunately, he survived, but not without the panic that all parents experience in such situations. Farrell says she now only uses traditional liquid detergent. "I don't have to worry about him getting into that big bottle as easily as he bit into a packet," she said.