A mum has spoken out about her unorthodox habit of eating baby powder – chowing down on an entire bottle each day.
Dreka Martin, 27, started to crave eating Johnson’s baby powder around 10 years ago, saying she’d now choose it over ‘real food’ if forced to decide.
She says the longest she’s ever managed to abstain from the addiction was when she was pregnant with her three-year-old son, Faiz.
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But now she gets through one 623g (22 oz) bottle of Johnson's Aloe & Vitamin E per day, having made her way through almost $4,000 worth of the stuff already this year.
Dreka claims she has never experienced any health or digestive issues, but Johnson’s has advised that its baby powder should not be ingested and is formulated ‘for use on the skin only’.
Dreka, from New Orleans, Louisiana, said: "I love eating baby powder. It tastes exactly how it smells.
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"It's just something I do to cope. It just makes me feel good and makes me happy.
"It's an addiction that I try to stop but I just can't. When I think about it my mouth waters.
"It's gotten to the point where I eat baby powder and I don't even care about eating real food.
"If I had the choice between eating real food and baby powder, I'd choose baby powder.
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"I would spend my last dollar on it because I need it so much.”
She said she ‘kept it a secret’ from her mum for a month, but that the alarm was raised when it kept being used so quickly.
"Normally we had a bottle for two months and it was being used in a week so she had a feeling that something was wrong,” Dreka continued.
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"I've tried to hide it from everybody but I do it so often and I won't be able to talk when my mouth is full of it. They ask what's in my mouth and I tell them it's baby powder.
"Friends and family tell me to stop and that it's bad for my health. It sometimes upsets me when they judge me.
"When they worry it makes me want to stop, but it's not that easy. I still sneak and do it. I can't just stop.”
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Dreka claims to have pica, an eating disorder characterised by compulsions to eat non-food items such as paint or chalk.
It is believed the condition is linked to traumatic life events, with the mum-of-one saying the addiction worsened in 2014, and again in January 2023, after the deaths of two loved ones.
During her pregnancy, Dreka says she had six blood transfusions to stop her baby powder cravings, as doctors believed they were related to low iron levels.
However, she started eating it again when her son was three-months-old, saying she feels ‘worried’ Faiz will copy her habit.
Dreka – who is now taking iron pills to ease the cravings - said: "When I get my son out of the tub I put the baby powder on him and he asks for some because he will see that I eat it.
"I act like I'm putting it in his mouth. He knows when I put it in my mouth, I can't talk so he walks around making chewing noises.
"I know he only wants to eat it because he sees me eating. It makes me want to stop. It worries me."
Dreka speaks about her unusual addiction on TikTok to her 24,000 followers, as she knows there are ‘other people out there’ like her who feared they weren’t ‘normal’ until they saw her doing it.
"I was at work over the weekend and a girl came up to me and said she saw my TikTok and she told me she keeps one of the smaller baby powders in her bra,” she said.
"I get a lot of hate comments but I've been through so much in my life that somebody talking about me is the least of my worries.
"Some people see me and say, 'that's the girl that eats the baby powder. How are you eating that? Ew.'
"Other people that do it are scared or embarrassed that people are going to talk about them.
"If anything, I want to stop for myself and my son. He's my main concern."
A spokesperson for Johnson's said: "Johnson's Cornstarch Baby Powder with Aloe & Vitamin E is formulated for use on the skin only and should not be ingested.
"As with all our products, consumers should read and follow the directions for use on the label."
Featured Image Credit: Kennedy News and MediaTopics: Health, Mental Health, Parenting, Pregnancy