PICA disease reflects a behavioral disorder that consists, like birds, magpies (hence its name) in eating inedible things such as paper, clay, earth, or hair. Up to two years, this disease cannot be diagnosed since the discovery of the world comes through the mouth. It is only if this behavior persists that an evaluation becomes possible.

PICA disease is classified as a compulsive disorder. The person cannot prevent himself from ingesting everything that passes through his hands: chalk, hair, coins. The goal is not to make an assault on her life, but she cannot control this urge.

Derived from the Latin name, “pica” which means “the pie”, the disease has taken this name because the bird known as a thief, steals everything he finds.

This eating disorder (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders), affects people at all ages and can appear during pregnancy.

The observation of such behavior should alert beyond two years but not before. Young children are used to putting all kinds of materials in their mouths, without this search for the senses being of a pathological order.

This disease can sometimes be associated with an intellectual deficit, a severe autistic disorder or with mental disorders such as schizophrenia.

It is often relatives who alert the attending physician. They notice the absorption of notebooks, foam seats, even wall coverings.

The doctor then performs a physical examination and may order more extensive tests, such as x-rays, to check for the presence of residues in the body, which could block certain organs.

Pica is diagnosed when a person has regularly eaten things that are not food for a month or more:

• of the earth ;
• chalk ;
• coal ;
• sand;
• wood;
• soap ;
• you paper;
• rocks ;
• sometimes even feces.

For children, eating such things is not considered abnormal until the age of two, when they put everything in their mouths. It is also not diagnosed when eating this type of material is part of a person’s culture, as in some African tribes that eat dirt.

Sometimes pica is diagnosed following hospitalization for suffocation or stomach pain. We then realize that the digestive tract is blocked, the patient has stomach cramps, severe constipation or lead poisoning (especially in the case of swallowed batteries).

Blood tests or stool tests will then be necessary to determine the rate of intoxication.

As PICA disease is a behavioral disorder, there is no general treatment. Patients can be followed by a psychiatrist in order to work on a possible modification of their behavior or to be able to identify the situations which provoke these compulsions.

Blood tests are done regularly to prevent nutritional deficiencies. Blockages in the digestive tract may require surgery. Some patients go so far as to absorb sharp or pointed objects, with the risk of perforation of the digestive tract.

Pica can last for several months and then go away on its own, especially in children. This disorder can be caused by great stress due to a situation that they cannot verbalize or manage.

Behavioral therapies, such as the Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) method, can also work in children.

The film “Swallow”, “swallow” in French, deals with this disabling disorder. Theatrical release on January 15, 2020, it is directed by Carlo Mirabella-Davis in collaboration with the psychoclinician Dr Rachel Bryant-Waugh, world expert in this field.

Inspired by the story of her own grandmother, the film tells the story of Hunter, a young woman with a tidy married life. This one at the time of her pregnancy, prisoner of her way of life and her in-laws, begins to eat pins, a thumbtack, a marble … The family then decides to monitor her actions to avoid the worst and especially that it does not harm the life of her child and the descendants.

Director Carlo Mirabella-Davis describes here the life of his grandmother who, as a housewife in the 1950s, began to develop these obsessive-compulsive disorders and ended up being interned in a mental asylum.

Raising awareness among the general public through cinema, to alert people to this still little-known and yet severely crippling disease. He won the “special prize” of the Deauville Festival.