Accidental ingestion of hairpin in an adolescent girl

Abstract

Ingestion of headscarf pin is a particular type of foreign body ingestion sometimes experienced by adolescent girls and even older women while putting on their headscarf. We report on a 13-year-old girl who presented at the emergency unit at our hospital within 48 hr after accidentally swallowing a headscarf pin. The pin was successfully retrieved from the ascending colon through colonoscopy. Headscarf pin ingestion is a serious problem among women who wear headscarves for various reasons. However, the retrieval of such pins from the colon through colonoscopy has been infrequently reported.