WARNING: If you are squeamish, this might not be for you. If you are squeamish but intrigued, continue reading at your own risk. I can assure you there will be no pictures in this post, if that helps you make a decision!
A few months ago I stumbled upon a blog from this very put-together-looking woman. She wrote about being a stay-at-home mom and things like that. (If I had bookmarked the blog I’d share it with you, but I didn’t.) Anyway, attractive blonde with modern hairstyle who gave birth to adorable blonde daughter wearing equally adorable outfits (pretty sure they were Southern by the ruffles and bows) suddenly shocked me when searching her posts I found one about her wanting to eat her placenta!
If you don’t know what a placenta is, open a new tab and do a Google search. I can’t spell everything out!
I read these back when I was still semi-nauseated (i.e. second trimester; the first was super-nauseating), and I also happened to be eating lunch. I say that because I managed to research the subject pretty well without getting sick—go me!
Back to crazy placenta woman: she came home from the hospital with her husband, daughter and her placenta in a bag that promptly went into her freezer. She had been saving it to one day cook and eat it. Apparently, she found a friend who also wanted to do this with her, and they were going to dine on their endocrine organs together.
I never figured out what recipe she chose or if/when she finally went through with it. I was so intrigued (and yes, a bit grossed out) by the thought of this that I began Googling anything I could find on the subject. First I read a column from TIME by a man whose wife also took her placenta home from the hospital, but rather than eat it, she had it encapsulated—she took it in pills. You can read it here.
After discovering some people eat it and some people take it in pills, I had to know more. I’ll sum up my initial findings in list form:
1. Women do this as a way to help avoid postpartum depression, a mood disorder that affects some women following delivery. Many women experience the “baby blues” that can last for about two weeks, but postpartum depression continues and is more severe.
2. There are four ways I found people use placenta: they plant it under a tree, they make a print of it as art (it resembles a tree; the umbilical cord is the trunk), they (or someone trained in this) cook it and eat it or they hire someone to encapsulate it.
3. There is little to no medical evidence to show that this actually does anything at all for women in the postpartum period, only anecdotal evidence.
4. My initial reading also informed me women should consume only their own placenta…as if I would be so inclined to do this with another woman’s organ.
The curiosity continues…
I couldn’t help myself. I kept reading. I found someone in the valley (where I live is called the Pioneer Valley by the way) who specializes in this. Turns out, she holds informational sessions about placenta encapsulation, so of course I planned to go!
I took my supportive, non-pregnant friend Kristin with me, and to keep this from being super lengthy and super gross, I’ll once again sum up our findings in list form. Then I’ll give you my final thoughts on this crazy practice.
1. This whole seemingly crazy thing comes from Traditional Chinese Medicine, which is why it hasn’t really been studied in the West…yet. There are lots of alternative therapies that come from TCM, and many are growing in popularity in Western culture. In talking with my doula about placenta encapsulation, she said it wouldn’t surprise her to see studies on this practice in a few years as it continues to trickle into our society.
2. The benefits:
- being an endocrine organ, the placenta regulates hormones and therefore contains hormones. During pregnancy, a woman’s hormones majorly increase (something like four times the normal amount), then plummet after delivery. Taking placenta pills, if you will, replenishes the body with needed hormones, possibly staving off any postpartum mood disorders.
- the placenta contains prolactin, a hormone that stimulates milk production.
- it can replenish iron in the body, supposedly needed due to blood loss during pregnancy. (I disagree with this point, but I’ll tell you why later.)
- it provides an energy boost. Kristin and I think this is supposedly due to the minerals and hormones said to be found in the placenta.
3. Risks: none that are really known unless your placenta is infected, which should be known by the doctor/midwife, and they wouldn’t release it to you if so. By the way, if you ever wanted to do this, you need to make it known to everyone around you at the hospital that you want your placenta. Otherwise it’s labeled medical waste and thrown out. Some locations give it more freely than others.
4. In this workshop, we were told that there shouldn’t be any problem with consuming someone else’s placenta, though why would anyone want to? Apparently you can also order sheep placenta pills from some supplement websites, and they may also carry several of the same benefits.
5. The pills last, so if you really wanted you could save them for PMS/menopause.
6. There is actually an organization that trains people in this. It’s called PBi—Placenta Benefits.info.
One other humorous thing I learned, and only someone like me would ask this, is that all placentas have a similar smell. She couldn’t describe it to me other than say it’s sort of metallic-y due to the blood. Oh, and from most accounts I’ve read and listened to, the whole process is really sterile and not messy. People who encapsulate placentas use all their own equipment and do it in the mother’s home. The organ is cleaned, steamed, put in a dehydrator for a day, sliced, ground and put in capsules.
I’ve also read that you can hire people to cook your placenta if you choose to eat it. And yes, I’ve read several recipes—people do eat liver ya know.
So what are my thoughts on all this?
First, I haven’t read anything “bad” about it (except this article…I’m sure there are more stories out there like it, I just didn’t search further) so I’m not opposed to doing it. However, the $250 price tag on the particular service in my area will definitely keep me from doing it this go round. That and Andrew would never let me spend that much money on it. If it were 50 bucks or so, I might give it a shot!
Second, I said earlier that I disagreed with it replenishing iron after blood lost during pregnancy and the first weeks of postpartum. From my wonderful childbirth education classes taught by our doula, I learned that your blood volume increases 50% during pregnancy. Once you give birth, you don’t lose ALL of that blood at one time—your body couldn’t handle it. That extra blood slowly cycles out of you. This means you’re never below your normal blood volume level and therefore shouldn’t need the extra iron. Besides, GNC sells supplements for that!
Sadly, I will not be consuming my placenta following this pregnancy. I can’t say I wouldn’t ever do it, but I also don’t feel like the positive evidence overwhelmingly supports doing it. It’s not FDA-regulated (but then again, some things are FDA-approved that I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole), it costs money that I’d rather spend on a day at the spa (how’s that for postpartum pampering!) and there are several other ways to deal with the possibility of postpartum mood disorders. For instance, eating well, getting rest at every possible opportunity and taking advantage of a good support network are all ideal options.
I included a couple of links throughout this post, but this is one for the service near me. She also makes tinctures (research on your own) and has pictures of the art. Kristin’s blog-partner-in-crime Laura also sent me this article recently. I don’t watch Mad Men, but the fact that January Jones is currently consuming her placenta in capsule form may have more American women doing it. At least it could spur some medical research on the subject!
Love your pregnancy research. Rock.
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