Eating Placenta: Mmm, Mmm, Good?!

The newest old trend in childbirth? Eating placenta. Yep, that membranous sac of veins is now the latest taste sensation (get back, Tom Colicchio!). By now, we're sure you've all heard about moms who have eaten their placenta (or had it dried and placed into pills). Heck, you might even have done so yourself! So we're curious: what did you do with yours? Consume it? Dry it? Turn it into a festive party hat?

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wdbaran
5 months ago

My placenta from my last birth ( 4 wks ago) is in my extra freezer right now. However it's fate will not lay on my dinner plate. While I see nothing but good coming from consuming it, I am a vegetarian so it's out of the question for me. Mine will bless our vegetable garden this coming spring. I must say the placenta has always interested me, even during my hospital births I asked to see "it" questioned where "it" was going to go. So with my last 2 births one at a more relaxed hospital and a home birth it was nice to get to keep my prize fertilizer!

Joiedevivre
5 months ago

Mine is still in the freezer. Waiting to plant it under a celebratory tree. Not sure I would stomach it, but guess I could check out the recipes... LOL (BTW, I did give birth at home and it was AWESOME after 3 hospital births... wish I had done it with all four!)

shienB
5 months ago

Placentophagia -- the pratice of eating the placenta -- has been observed throughout history in many parts of the world. In Western cultures, eating the placenta is often viewed as barbaric, but thanks to new information about the surprising benefits, there has been a recent push among young mothers to eat the placenta after giving birth. While many Western doctors discourage placentophagia with the claim that it carries no inherent benefits, studies have shown that eating the placenta can curb postpartum depression, replenish nutrients, increase milk production, and slow postpartum hemmorrhage. United States Hospitals consider a persons placenta to be biohazardous waste, which is why is gets trashed with the rest of the excess blood and guts. However every so often, groups of American dads and moms take to consuming the placenta, rather than allowing what they consider to be so much waste, states New York Magazine. True believers claim doing this helps combat postpartum depression, yet doctors fail to see eating the human placenta as anything aside from pseudo-science at best. On the meal plan for mothers and fathers: Consuming the placenta. Considering that the placenta filters toxins and viruses while letting in vitamins, minerals, nutrients and oxygen for baby until birth, those who believe in placentophagia see it as a kind of super-food.

tara.vanflower
6 months ago

I think it's vile. Would you eat your tonsils or gallbladder if you had it removed? How about your bowel movements? Ew. I mean, to each his own, but this just seems like hippy nonsense to me.

Shay
9 months ago

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Michelle Heather
2 yearss ago

OH NO! I am sorry, but that is just nasty to say the least....No offense to those who can find something within themselves to do such a thing...

bkn916
2 yearss ago

I am a vegetarian and because of a chronic illness and recent stent placement, I had to take Coumadin. I had horrible weakness, fatigue, and shaking in my extremities until my acupuncturist gave me an iron supplement in pill form. Though I was grossed out when I learned it was placenta, it helped me sooooo much that I am still taking it. The pills look like little red candies and are candy-coated, so I tell myself they are M&Ms. I have to say that I highly recommend placenta iron supplements - they work. However, eating placenta I could not handle. Hats off to those of you who can:)

bookishlady
2 yearss ago

One of the classes I teach reads a book called _The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down_. Remarkable in many ways, especially teaching it to future nurses, but also for its account of what the Hmong did with their placentas. They were buried under the house (dirt floors) in varying places of honor depending on the sex of the baby. The Hmong word for placenta is "little jacket", and this is needed once one dies before the soul can peacefully go to wherever it is going. Burying it under your house means your children's soul will know where to find the jacket that helps protect it on its journey to the afterlife. Therefore, refugees to the U.S. were devastated knowing their children's souls might not know the way back to Hmong homelands to find their placentas.

plue
2 yearss ago

I was born on an island in Japan--my mother had to take a ferry to get to the hospital (while in labor!) and she gave birth to me on a tatami mat completely naturally. Then, the midwife saved my placenta so that my father could bury it on the island where a tree would be planted. To this day, he talks about taking me back to the island to visit "my" tree. Apparently, there was a special custom on this island that whenever a girl baby was born, a tree was planted with her placenta and a special wooden doll was carved and given to the baby as a gift. Suffice it to say, I've always felt like I was born in some magical place (and I still have the doll).

asifford
2 yearss ago

I had not heard of keeping your placenta until after I had my daughter. For me, I don't really know what I would do with it, certainly not eat it. Kuddos to those who keep the placenta or even eat it. Just not my thing.

Eating Placenta: Mmm, Mmm, Good?!

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