Expectant mum irons out laundry powder cravings

UNDER CONTROL: Michaela Martin has controlled her pregnancy cravings with iron supplements and an adjusted diet. PHOTO/STUART MUNRO

A Turakina mother with insatiable pregnancy urges to eat laundry powder has managed to control her cravings.

Michaela Martin, 23, said her midwife put her on iron supplements and an iron-rich diet after blood tests revealed she had a "really bad" deficiency.

Miss Martin sought help on Facebook last month for her washing powder cravings, which began late in her second trimester.

She told the Chronicle it started as a craving to sniff the powder while doing the washing, but into her third trimester she began putting small amounts in her mouth and chewing it before rinsing her mouth out.

Since speaking to her midwife and discovering the iron deficiency, the cravings had "subsided substantially".

"It's been really helpful," she said.

While she does get the occasional urge to chow down on the odd bit of powder, Miss Martin has switched out of laundry products for fizzy sherbert lollies.

"I just eat them when I'm hard-out craving," she said.

Miss Martin made national headlines after speaking out about her unusual cravings, and even received calls from magazines in Australia and the UK wanting to share her story.

"I thought it was a crazy little thing that you obviously go through when you go through pregnancy."

Miss Martin has one other child but did not suffer odd cravings during her first pregnancy. She believed her iron deficiency this time could have something to do with her "carbo-loading" on potatoes, hot chips, and bread, rather than the red meats and leafy greens she was now eating.

Had she not received responses on Facebook from other mothers who had suffered the same craving, she would probably not have brought the matter to her midwife's attention until much later, she said.

Her midwife has since explained the dangers of eating the powder, and how it could affect her liver and her unborn child.

Many women had contacted her since her story went public, saying they had suffered the same thing and all their family members thought they were "crazy".

For Miss Martin, who has experienced all the same confusion, the response was simple.

"I feel you."