Doctors swallow Lego heads to see how long it takes to poo them out

In the name of science, six United Kingdom and Australia-based pediatricians agreed to swallow a Lego head to determine how long it would take for their bodies to pass them.

In a paper published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, six researchers from Australia and the UK swallowed the head of a Lego figure – roughly 10mm by 10mm – in the “noble tradition of self-experimentation”.

The experiment, they said, was to help parents get a better idea of how long it would likely take their child to pass a small foreign object — such as a coin or Lego piece — as kids are notorious for swallowing things they aren’t supposed to. Toy parts are the second most common foreign object that children swallow, and frequently cause anxiety among parents, but usually pass in a matter of days without pain or ill-effect.

Researchers used unique metrics to determine the time it took for the Lego head to pass: The Stool Hardness and Transit score and the Found and Retrieved Time score.

Researchers said they used a "variety of techniques" to retrieve the Lego head, ranging from tongue depressors, gloves and even chopsticks. In other words, "no turd was left unturned," they wrote.

By the end, they determined it took roughly one to three days to pass the Lego head, with an average time of 1.7 days.

None of the doctors had complications after ingesting the Lego, though one doctor still hadn’t passed his Lego head after two weeks.

“It is possible that childhood bowel transit time is fundamentally different from adult, but there is little evidence to support this, and if anything, it is likely that objects would pass faster in a more immature gut,” the researchers wrote,” noting the results should “be of use to anxious parents who may worry that transit times may be prolonged and potentially painful for their children.”