A 4-year-old student was hospitalized for constipation, thanks to her school’s toilet paper policy requiring kids to only take as much as they think they need, according to a new report.
The girl was so stressed about not taking enough toilet paper to the bathroom that she wasn’t properly relieving herself at Kitchener Road Primary school in Cardiff, Wales, her mom, Fahmin Khanum, told Wales Online.
“She was not clearing her bowels properly in school because of the toilet paper policy,” said Fahmin, a human resources manager. “It was a traumatic experience.”
The girl was hospitalized for three days in October at the University Hospital of Wales with stomach pain that doctors later diagnosed as constipation.
The mom said her daughter was potty trained at 2½ years old and never had problems before.
But Fahmin figured out the root of her kid’s health issues during parents’ night last week.
“At parents’ evening I went to the toilet and there was a single tissue dispenser and my daughter counted out five sheets and went to the toilet. There are no tissue dispensers in the cubicles,” Fahmin said. “I spoke to the head teacher and she told me it was so that children don’t block the toilets using too much toilet paper.”
The mom said her daughter has suffered anxiety using the bathroom at home and even soiled herself at school because she didn’t take enough toilet paper the first time.
“You can imagine you run out of toilet paper and you know you might need to take your pants down and go to the public area and go back in, or pull you pants back up and soil yourself going out to get more paper,” Fahmin said. “This is what happened to my daughter and she then had to go and tell a teacher in front of other children that she had soiled herself.”
Fahmin and her husband filed a formal complaint with the head teacher, prompting change at the school.
“We have reviewed our policy and will soon be installing dispensers in all our cubicles,” a school spokeswoman told Wales Online. “We will be contacting parents shortly to let them know of the change.”
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