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As a parent, you'll know that kids pick up and try to swallow small items, including pieces of Lego. But despite the frequency of this phenomenon, little research has been conducted in the region.
That's until researchers intervene and begin to swallow Lego, in the name of science. Six pediatric health professionals were recruited to swallow a Lego's head and record the time taken for the object to appear in their poop.
The results were published in the December issue of the Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health, in hopes of reassuring worried parents that their children are eating these little toys.
The team proposed two measures, frankly brilliant, named for the study. The Stool hardness and transit (SHAT) score, which measures the steadiness of their stools, and the Time Found and Recovered (FART), to see how long it took for the object to pass.
They found that the average FART score was 1.7 days – although one researcher reported that his Lego head had disappeared to never be found again (although he had been searching for two full weeks ). The researchers added, "There was evidence that women were perhaps more adept at looking in their stools than men, but this could not be validated statistically."
The SHAT results showed that the swallowed object did not affect the stool consistency of the researchers. The team also stated that she had not experienced any pain or side effects by swallowing the small Lego toy.
"A toy object quickly passes through uncomplicated adult subjects," the researchers concluded. "This will reassure parents and the authors argue that no parent should be supposed to rummage through the feces of his child to prove the recovery of an object."
They added that because of the small sample size, it is probably best not to let your children know that it is harmless to swallow Lego heads.
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