Anyone who has spent time around a young child knows how quickly loose change can become a serious hazard. Coins—especially the embattled penny—make up roughly 61 percent of the foreign objects ingested by children under the age of five. Swallowed coins can become lodged in a child’s airway or get stuck in their digestive tract, either of which can be life-threatening if not promptly addressed.
But recent research from the The Royal College of Surgeons in the UK shows a noticeable decrease in medical procedures to remove coins and other foreign bodies over the past decade. The researchers theorize that the dropoff in choking incidents is being fueled by a society-wide shift towards digital payment methods. More digital payments means fewer people are carrying cash on hand, which in turn means less stray coins lying around for curious kids to grab. In 2022, they note, there were 689 fewer cases of foreign objects removed from children’s noses, airways, and throats compared to 2012—a 29 percent decline.
Emergency procedures declined as cashless payments became more common
The findings, published in an open-access format last June, are based on UK National Health Service (NHS) hospital admission data collected between 2000 and 2022. Researchers note that while cashless payments emerged in the UK around 2007, they only gained broader adoption after 2012. From that point onward, they observed measurable declines in procedures to remove foreign objects. In 2012, for example, 2,405 children under the age of 16 required such procedures, compared to just 1,716 in 2022. Specifically, there were 195 fewer procedures to remove swallowed objects and 484 fewer to extract objects stuck in noses during those same time periods. Surgeries to remove objects from the digestive tract also declined by 29 percent over the decade.
Shifts towards cashless payment methods don’t necessarily tell the entire story. Researchers note that improvements in childproof packaging and public awareness campaigns about choking hazards during the same period may have also contributed to the decline. The COVID-19 pandemic may have played a role as well, as fewer children sought hospital care for procedures during that time. A shift towards remote work for some parents may have also increased the overall parental supervision. Still, even with these factors in mind, researchers say the most significant driver of the decline is likely the overall move away from cash payments.
“Although this relationship is multifactorial, our data suggest an association between the introduction of contactless payments and a reduction in the number of FB [foreign body] retrieval procedures from the of [sic] upper aerodigestive tract,” researchers write.
COVID-19 sped up interest in cashless payments
Digital payments have surged in popularity over the past decade, driven by the convenience and widespread adoption of mobile banking, digital wallets, and payment systems like Apple Pay. Platforms like Stripe have also made it easier for small businesses to accept digital payments for everything from coffee to high-end boutique clothing. The COVID-19 pandemic poured gasoline on that already accelerating trend away from cash. In 2022, cash (including coins) made up on average just 18 percent of total payments made by an average American adult, according to data collected by the the Federal Reserve. That’s compared to 26 percent in 2019.
The rapid shift to online shopping, driven by lockdowns and concerns over handling physical money during the early days of the pandemic, took hold and never fully subsided. That overall trend appears set to continue. A 2024 market research report from PYMNTS Intelligence found that 82 percent of U.S. millennials and 85 percent of Gen Z respondents preferred digital payments over cash. Nearly all (91 percent) of Gen Z respondents in the same report said they were adopting digital-first payment methods like mobile wallets.
But modern technology introduces its own new set of possible hazards as well. A 2019 study published by Harvard researchers in the journal Pediatrics found that small components and button batteries for consumer electronic devices were responsible for an increasing proportion of foreign object removal in children than in years prior. Even so, small coins were still by far the most common source of accidental ingestion. In other words, those looking for a good reason to discontinue the penny may have just found their next best talking point.