anyone have kids, nieces nephews, grandkids who would eat paper (milk, baby)
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How many people in your family are doing this? What ages are they ?.
This is called " pica"- the eating of non-edilble items. Little kids something chew on virtually anything, but outgrow it by age 2 or so. They are just exploring with their mouths.
If you have a whole bunch of folks in your family doing this, including many of the children, then you might want to consider other things. Often when the body is lacking certain essential nutrients it seeks them out by eating other stuff. Even if the other stuff is useless to eat.
The first to look at is a lack of iron in the diet. The body is anemic and is trying to correct the situation. This can be because of diet or the body's inability to absorb it from food.
An inability to digest food because of celiac disease can also be a possibility. The body is eating but can't draw enough of nutrients from food. This can be an inherited condition, as can a tendency toward iron deficiency. Celiac disease can even contribute to ward the iron deficiency in some cases.
Perhaps those individuals eating paper need to see a doctor for some blood tests to rule out a problem or to discover and treat the problem. Good luck
We had two foster children with terrible pica - they would eat anything and everything. Paperclips, tops of pencils, entire tubes of chapstick, paper, playdoh, anything small enough of get in their mouths.
My son has some mild sensory issues and puts things in his mouth still at 7. It is not pica because he doesn't actually want to eat anything strange (pica is an actual desire for usually a particular non food item like ice or sand). My son will chew on pencils, put lego pieces in his mouth occasionally etc. I could see him trying paper but he wouldn't actually eat it, just chew it up and spit it out.
When our son was two and three he used to chew on his wood bed, that was fun.
I used to chew on paper all the time as a child. When I was four I was treated for a double-hernia and when my mother tried to explain to me what was wrong told me that it was "torn tissue"; I assumed it was because of all the torn paper I'd eaten. I continued chewing on paper for several years following that but it petered out eventually, though I can't recall specifically when. My mother remembers me doing it but my siblings don't, and they're older.
I recall eating paper as a kid. Can't remember what age or when I stopped. I also loved eating Milkbones (for our dogs)...yumm, yumm. Fortunately I grew out of my strange eating habits although I do love my sweets!!
My youngest sometimes likes to eat paper. When she was a baby, she liked tissues. She is 4 now, and I still fish paper out of her mouth. Usually, I will see her chewing when I don't think there should be any food around. I ask her what is she eating, and she will answer that it is "gum". We don't usually have gum around in our family, so I know it's not that, but actually paper, and make her spit it out. I don't think she's actually eating it, just chewing on it.
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