Mm, I could smell it from across the room and my mouth watered. I was dying for a big, juicy bite. Immediately, I felt ashamed and also so confused. Was it a nice medium-rare steak hot and pink in the center? NO. It was a towel from the washer that hadn’t yet dried. I was several months into pregnancy with my fifth child and craving non-food items was definitely a first for me. This is when I learned more about pica.
I texted my midwife, concerned. “I’m, um, craving towels? Is that normal?!” Her response was, and I’m almost directly quoting here, “That’s pica. It means your body is pissed. You need to eat better.” It’s true, I was busy and I was just not in the mood for much food so my diet was lacking in its usual nutrients. I went on to experience these odd cravings several more times until my daughter was born.
Pica is the craving and eating of non-food items. Maybe you’ve seen dramatic versions of it on television. It’s categorized as an eating disorder but it can be caused by different medical anomalies. My craving certainly wasn’t intentional or rational, I just knew that I felt an overwhelming desire to consume ridiculous things.
Pica seems to be most often associated with the body’s lack of something, be it poor nutrition or anemia. When you’re pregnant, the fetus sponges off of your nutrients and you’re supposed to replenish them. That’s why we take the vitamins and are supposed to eat healthier foods. It’s for our body’s own benefit. The baby is going to get the nutrients it needs out of you but you’ll be better off if you’re taking care of yourself. I wasn’t doing a very good job of this.
I had no idea what I was experiencing but I had heard the word before. I thought ‘pica’ was an acronym for something, like People Itching with Casual Abnormalities or Persons Ingesting Cotton Allegedly, but it turns out that it’s named as such because the Latin word for magpie is “pica” and they eat a bunch of weird things too. It can be terrible for you to eat soil and lint, it can cause a lot of issues in your digestive system. As it turns out, it’s such an abnormal behavior that it does well to alert you that there is a problem so doctors can look for an underlying cause.
The reason I’m telling you about this is not only to make you aware that such a thing even exists but also so that those of you who experience this will know that you’re not alone. When you’re suddenly craving paper clips, you’re often too embarrassed or afraid to tell your doctor. I didn’t fully believe myself, I had to be craving something else. How could I be enticed by the smell of a wash cloth? But it’s important to have this talk with your doctor and not to follow through with your cravings so as not to physically damage your body. In my opinion, even a craving for the smell of things, like gasoline, should be noted. It seems like there isn’t always treatment depending upon your circumstance but a simple vitamin boost may be needed. A doctor can help you figure out what the next step should be.
