Its the rawness aspect, or even freshly cooked, that I couldn't face either Sara although as you say, if it was a case of life and death then bring it on. I had the same thoughts as you about the encapsulation side of things - it can't hurt - and IMO it is certainly helping enormously.

What I did find really, really disappointing was that the second of the two midwives who looked after me while birthing was extremely negative about it. She read my "birth plan", which basically consisted of two requests - leave me alone unless I ask for something and I want to keep my placenta. She assumed that I wanted to plant it, but when I told her about the encapsulation she became very negative. We had a discussion that lasted probably an hour and she seemed determined to try and scare me out of it by making comments such as "but how do you know what you'll end up with if you don't do it yourself?" etc. Fortunately I'm a pretty strong minded woman (my DH would probably say stubborn!) so I just stuck to my guns and in the end got a bit snarly with her and said it was lucky we all had the ability to do our own research and then make our own decisions. It is disappointing though, and I can imagine how easily someone who was perhaps less determined than I was or who was maybe dealing with a bit of negativity from their support system might have been talked out of it.