A team of doctors who swallowed Lego bricks and timed how long they took to pass through their bowels have said the results of their research should reassure concerned parents.
In a paper published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, six researchers from Australia and the UK said they swallowed the head of a Lego figure — about 10mm by 10mm — in the “noble tradition of self-experimentation.”
Toy parts are the second-most common foreign object that children swallow and frequently cause anxiety among parents, but usually pass in a matter of days without pain or ill-effect.
For the special Christmas edition of the journal, which frequently features quirky studies, the team decided to put their own bodies on the line.
“[We] could not ask anything of our test subjects that we would not undertake themselves,” they wrote.
They developed their own metrics: the Stool Hardness and Transit (SHAT) score and the Found and Retrieved Time (FART) score.
The FART score — how many days it took the Lego piece to pass through the bowels — was between 1.1 days and three days, with an average of 1.7 days, the paper said.
Using the SHAT score, the researchers also found that the consistency of their stools did not change.
They said that they compared SHAT and FART scores to see if looser stools caused quicker retrieval, but found no correlation.
One of the report’s authors, Grace Leo, said that she hoped the report made people smile while also reassuring parents.
Parents should seek medical advice if children swallow things that are sharp, longer than 5cm, wider than 2.5cm, magnets, coins, button batteries or are experiencing pain, she said.
However, most small, smooth, plastic objects will pass easily, Leo said.
If parents are uncertain, they should seek medical attention, she added.
“I can’t remember if it was pre or post-breakfast,” Leo said. “But we all ingested our Lego between 7am and 9am in our own time zone, with a glass of water.”
“For most people, it was passed after one to three stools, but for poor [researcher Damien Roland], he didn’t find his, so we made him search every stool for two weeks,” she said. “I passed it on the first stool afterwards and was very relieved.”
None of the researchers experienced any symptoms or pain due to the Lego inside them, Leo said, but added that people should not replicate the experiment at home.
It is possible for children’s bowels to react differently, the report said, but added that there was “little evidence to support this.”
“If anything, it is likely that objects would pass faster in a more immature gut,” the researchers wrote.
“Hopefully there is more conversation and awareness of foreign bodies, and a reassurance for parents that, for small foreign bodies, they aren’t advised to search through the stool,” Leo said. “If it’s a small Lego head, you don’t need to go poking through their stool. That should save parents some heartache, unless that Lego head is dearly loved.”
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