Woman EATS toilet paper as pregnancy craving - then can't stop!
She developed the condition known as PICA
A mum-of-five revealed she started to eat an entire toilet roll every day, following a pregnancy craving.
Jade Sylvester, then 25, developed the urge to eat the brand new, clean toilet paper during one pregnancy and then could not stop the craving so kept on eating it!
She first developed the bizarre snacking habit while she was expecting her youngest son Jaxon, but 15 months after giving birth she still couldn't quite quit munching on the paper.
"Two months into the pregnancy, I started craving toilet roll. I still don't know why," said Jade, from Gainsborough, UK.
"I like the feeling of the texture in my mouth, rather than the taste. I like the dryness, she said in 2014.
"My family tell me it isn't very good for me - but I can't help it!"
Bizarrely the full-time mum used to wait to go to the toilet and while she was in there, she would eat a few sheets of the toilet tissue in private. She claimed she would chew and swallow one roll a day.
"While I was pregnant I went to the loo and looked at the toilet roll and thought 'I have to eat that' - I know it sounds silly," she said.
"I usually eat around eight pieces per visit - sometimes I go to the bathroom just to get some toilet roll," she said at the time.
"It does fill me up quite a bit."
"Different brands taste different. I have one roll in the bathroom for eating and one to be used normally," she said.
PREGNANCY CRAVING CONDITION
Strangely Jade's condition isn't as unusual as it sounds and there is a name for craving non-edible foods during pregnancy - pica. Pica is Latin for magpie which is a bird notorious for eating almost anything.
There is currently no real cause for pica, although the Journal of American Dietetic Association believe there may be a connection to an iron deficiency. While others speculate that pica cravings are the body’s attempt to obtain missing through vitamins.
The most common substances craved during pregnancy are dirt, clay, brick, ice, toothpaste, sand and even cigarette ash.
People with pica are advised to go and see their doctor if they're concerned or try chewing gum when the craving strikes as an alternative.
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