Is your kid's drink bottle making them sick?

After prying open the drink bottle lid, Craig Beresford was horrified by the scum inside. Photo / Facebook, Craig Beresford.

A concerned father in the UK is warning parents to thoroughly inspect their children's reusable drink bottles after he discovered the grime hiding inside his daughter's Sistema Twist 'N' Sip bottle.

Craig Beresford shared an image of his seven-year-old daughter's pried open bottle lid after deciding the drink bottle was linked to her ongoing bouts of illness.

A friend suggested the pop-up lid could be causing her upset tummy and "occasional runs" that were lasting weeks at a time.

Sharing the grimy image to Facebook, Beresford wrote: ""Today, I took a sharp knife and broke the cap apart. It isn't designed to be taken apart and requires a bit of force to disassemble.

"The internal components have been hoarding bacteria. We were horrified and heartbroken that our little girl had been using this bottle in this state."

While he says he was washing, sterilising and air-drying the bottle and cap each day, he couldn't get to the internal mechanisms of the lid, which he later noted are now unable to be fitted back together.

The post has been shared over 50,000 times and Beresford has since edited his original comment to note he never wanted to make a complaint, rather raise an issue and alert other parents to the problem.

"The post was started as a general warning to 'INSPECT' your bottle caps, not throw them away. It is not a witch-hunt, or an attempt to boycott the manufacturer. Hence the reason they were never informed, or tagged", he wrote.

He has since received numerous comments, some lamenting the same concerns over their child's drink bottle lids making them sick.

Despite not tagging Sistema in the post, the company has responded to parents concerns in a statement on their website.

"We take this feedback very seriously and have therefore posted on our website videos and instructions that demonstrate how to take apart and clean each of the three tops we currently have on the market.

"We manufacture our tops to meet international child safety standards and it is for this reason they can be difficult to disassemble."

Sistema's cleaning tips:

• Remove the cap from the bottle after use

• Extend the lid to open

• Put the top either in the dishwasher or hand wash and then place in water for five minutes with a sterilising solution.

- nzherald.co.nz