These 5 gifts could send your kid to the ER for Christmas, according to a pediatrician

Pediatric ER doctor Meghan Martin is back dropping some knowledge on her TikTok about keeping kids out of her hospital. This time it’s all about holiday toys for kids—as in, unsafe christmas gifts. No, she’s not discussing what toys the kids are into these days, she’s sharing the top five gifts that can send your kids to the emergency room. While not a super holly-jolly topic, it’s an important one that needs to be shared far and wide because you never know when you’ll save a life or prevent an accident.

We previously learned from her other videos that cold weather doesn’t cause colds, hurting everyone’s grandma’s feelings from all over the world, and to beware of where you put your edibles so kids don’t consume them. But now she’s sharing her top five list of gifts to not give your children based on her experiences with cases she’s worked on pertaining to these gifts. 

Number five on the list was anything with a button battery. “They keep those little compartments closed with these little cheap screws … it’s not worth it. They can literally kill kids and they do every year,” she said. They’re a choking hazard in addition to having the potential to completely burn a hole in your child’s esophagus or stomach, according to Poison Control. 

Next on her countdown at number four are water beads. “These are sold as sensory toys but kids can ingest them when they’re small and they can get larger and cause bowel obstructions,” Martin warns. She adds that they can cause problems with pets, too.

Electric scooters are number three on her countdown. “Kids can get going way too fast on these,” she says. “They hit a bump, they go flying, they mess up their faces, their arms their heads—it’s bad news bears,” she says.

Number two is hoverboards. “We see so many hoverboard injuries right after Christmas,” Martin says. “They break their forearms and their elbows and sometimes their heads.”

“And also they can literally light your house on fire,” she warns.

So what is number one? Trampolines.

“I detest trampolines,”Martin says. “They literally keep the emergency department and the orthopedics team in business,” she says. “It doesn’t matter if you have a net. It doesn’t matter if its buried in the ground. Most of the injuries actually happen on the trampoline,” she warns.

Martin adds that your insurance company may drop you, too, so there’s that. “Homeowners insurance also hates trampolines,” she says.

She concludes, “I hope you have a wonderful holiday and do not need to pay me a visit.”