(ABC 6 News) — Look around your house — chances are you’ve got toys and other household items powered by tiny button-size batteries.

What you may not know is that they’re potentially deadly if swallowed. A new law is supposed to protect children from gaining access to them, but as a startling Consumer Reports (CR) investigation reveals, gaps remain that may be putting your family at risk.

Button and coin cell batteries are tiny but powerful: you can find them in everything from tealights to toys. In the hands of young children, they’re uniquely dangerous.

Aside from posing a choking hazard, if ingested, fluids in the body can activate a battery’s electrical current, said emergency room doctor Dr. Darria Long.

“If a child swallows one, it can become lodged in their esophagus, where it can actually burn a hole through the tissue and can be life-threatening in as little as two hours,” Dr. Long said.

The consumer product safety commission estimates there were more than 54-thousand ER visits and at least 25 deaths attributed to button batteries from 2011 to 2021.

How do children get ahold of these dangerous batteries?

Depending on the product, it’s not very hard. Consumer Reports recently evaluated 31 products that run on button batteries, and the results were alarming, CR’s Lauren Kirchner said.

“We found that a third of the toys and household items that we looked at had button batteries that were dangerously accessible,” Kirchner said.

The battery compartments on these five products opened so easily—a child, or potentially even a baby, could access the batteries.

The compartments on these five items also pose a risk because they were easily breakable.

The battery compartments on the other 21 products were safer.

CR tried to contact the 10 companies for comment. All but one either couldn’t be reached or didn’t respond. Lumabase says their newer tealights have screws securing the battery compartments.

To keep your family safe, consumer reports says to look at the products around your house using button batteries.

“If you find anything in your home that takes button batteries and it has a battery compartment that pops open really easily with just like one hand—especially if you have kids or babies at home—it might be a good idea to just get rid of it,” Kirchner said.

CR also recommends storing your batteries where kids can’t reach them.