Eating the placenta....why?

[blue daisy]

most hospitals and birth centres will permit you to take home your placenta...you just have to sign a form that basically indicates that you will dispose of it appropriately

and...mmm...if you cook the placenta it removes any nutritional benefit...it is supposed to be eaten raw...tiny tit bits

xx yogababy

[kungfubecca]

I couldn't stand to even look at mine, I found it a bit grose, and I would never eat it, however in saying all that I can understand why some do eat it. If you consider there was a time when as homo sapians (sp) we didn't know where our next meal would come from, and you had to eat to feed your new born, and there was this perfectly good hunk of meat with heaps of nutrients. Waste not want not.

[Phteven]

and...mmm...if you cook the placenta it removes any nutritional benefit...it is supposed to be eaten raw...tiny tit bits

I'm not sure that anyone can tell people how they're supposed to eat thier placenta - surely it's a personal choice. There may be non-nutritive reasons that some women want to eat placenta.
I doubt that cooking it removes any nutritional benefit - it might remove some but iron isn't removed by cooking nor is calcium and mot of the protien would remain after cooking too. Hormones could quite possibly be destroyed by heating. Some vitamins will degrade when cooked like vitamin C but others don't like lots of the B group.

[blue daisy]

apologies dachlostar...I was simply refering to midwifery lore - where it is believed to have a positive affect on the mother and reducing postnatal depression

...but it is mostly the hormones in the placenta that helps (if the reason for eating it is for the benefits), encouraging the restoration of the physical and pyschological body for the new mother

xx yogababy