In 2013, Public Health England (PHE) published a press statement and directive to General Practitioner doctors (GPs), Directors of Public Health and other relevant staff to dissuade pregnant women from Asian and African communities from ingesting a potentially poisonous product known as calabash chalk ( Public Health England., 2013). The use of culturally sensitive Public health interventions which consider a community approach, while attempting to integrate these two knowledge systems through further research is likely to bear more fruits. Furthermore, within such a top down framework, opportunities to integrate biomedical science and indigenous knowledge systems are potentially missed. However, Public Health practitioners' top down approach and response which considers the practice as вЂњdangerousвЂќ and potentially harmful to the health of the woman and unborn child with midwives and General Practitioner doctors called upon to discourage it, risks alienating the target population. Reasons for clay ingestion include curbing morning sickness, nausea, satisfying cravings, вЂњmineral deficiencyвЂќ and other life sustaining beliefs. 2School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, United KingdomДЇindings from this qualitative audit conducted in a North London Borough among Black African women show that clay ingestion during pregnancy is a cultural phenomenon embedded in indigenous knowledge (IK).1Department of Health, London Metropolitan University, London, United Kingdom.Cathrine Madziva 1 * and Martha Judith Chinouya 2 *

Black women pica syndrome