Woman can’t stop eating toilet paper

Some women crave strange food combinations when they’re pregnant. This woman started craving toilet paper.

Jade Sylvester, 25, a British mother of five, started craving toilet paper — clean toilet paper — during her most recent pregnancy.

“Two months into the pregnancy, I started craving toilet roll. I still don’t know why,” she told the Lincolnshire Echo. “I like the feeling of the texture in my mouth, rather than the taste. I like the dryness.”

No longer pregnant, she still snacks on it, sneaking off to the washroom to eat a few squares at a time — up to a roll’s worth a day.

"I thought the cravings would stop after I gave birth but they haven’t. I can’t quit. I keep coming back for more,” she said, adding that different brands taste different.

"It can’t be doing my insides any good, but it hasn’t caused me any health problems or any illness."

She tries to hide her habit from her kids. When they do spot her noshing on toilet paper, they tell her off.

"If my daughter sees me she says, ‘Spit it out Mummy, spit it down the toilet,’” Sylvester said.

While toilet paper is certainly an odd craving, it’s not completely unheard of.

Pica is a condition — some call it an eating disorder — in which people crave (and consume) nonfood items with no nutritional value like dirt, clay, ice, cigarette butts or paint chips. Sylvester suspects she suffers from the condition.

While it’s unknown why some women develop Pica cravings during pregnancy, some research suggests it could be related to an iron deficiency.

Eating these nonfood substances while pregnant is potentially harmful to an unborn child. Fortunately for Sylvester, her youngest, 15-month old Jaxon, “was born healthy and is developing normally.”