Eating the placenta....why?

[erinjacob]

the placenta is said to help with pnd i will be eating my placenta at my next birth my midwife will chop it into tablet size pieces about 5 peices an then freeze them then i just swallow them so wont taste a thing, hopefully it hells cos i didnt like the pnd with my 3rd. im really funny with stuff like that but my midwife assures my if i close my eyes an swallow i wont tast it an it will work hopefully fingers crossed

[LivvyLouLou]

I think the homeopathic remedy my midwife had made for me from a small part of the placenta did work. For 4 or so weeks after my daughters birth I was very down, and by 6 weeks it had cleared and I felt much better. I think the placenta remedy certainly helped , in retrospect my baby blues could definately have developed into PND.

[Fire]

The placenta is rich in zinc. Very rich. ((ETA - Toward the end of pregnancy, copper rises, pushing masses of zinc into the placenta. This zinc is thrown away with the placenta causing zinc deficiency in both mother and baby)) Zinc deficiency causes most of our modern birth issues: post natal depression, inconsolable crying in baby, long labours, etc. Eating placenta is the fastest way to fix SO many issues in baby and mama before they even arise. Highly recommended, seriously. It is also good for confronting personal bounderies such as "what I find gross and why", if ya brave enough .

As mentioned, it is also high in hormones, but like most of life, it's biggest effect is a mystery. Putting placenta to the lips stopping bleeding? Think about it. It's an amazing feat. And it also does many other things for baby and child. If you just bury it, at least choose a fabulous tree for it to nourish, and know that the fruit of that tree is extra special.

If you freeze it in little specs, you can swallow it like a pill without tasting it.

If you still can't get past eating placenta, and most in our culture can't, then I highly recommend you supplement with at least zinc during pregnancy, and don't mess about. Treat it like the most important thing you can do for your birthing/mothering body. If you are close to birthing, you can still start to benefit for the birth if you start today, and if you have a babe who is hard to console (ie "colic") even though you co-sleep and sling, then supplement or eat oysters, the zinc will go into the breast milk. If you don't breast feed, I can't recommend a solution as it would depend on what type of zinc was in the artificial milk and how much.

To even come close to comparison to a placenta, you also have to be diligent with good oils for hormone manufacture (such as fish oils and EPO), magnesium, vitamins E and A - as a start. And not what you find in those run of the mill preg pills, which are a crappy way to supplement in pregnancy. Also, don't forget to continue after the birth, when hormones are rebalancing again.

I'm pregnant and TOTALLY intent on freezing some placenta, and even though I squirm at the thought, I intend on taking some fresh. HELL YEAH! I've researched for months and there ain't no way I am missing out on that this time, and what it does for mama and babe. I'm homebirthing, and doing all this wonderful work for babe so it seems a waste to then just throw that miraculous organ to the dirt.

Someone mentioned cooking is ok, it isn't really. Cooking is an unnatural way to treat any food, all enzymes are destroyed (and btw, should be replaced after a meal with an enzyme supp), and even minerals are altered, hormones and vitamins and any living energy that was present are completely ruined. It is pure luck if something remains unchanged. Heat at below boiling point is enough to do this, so frying is out of the question (if the purpose is to have the complete benefit of a placenta).

[pollyanna]

I'm curious about this too? Can you just say to your hospital,Can i have my placenta to Go???Take away please?

[Alina0210]

A lady I know is a Doula and Hypnotherapist, and she ate her placenta. She is a strict vegetarian too. She decided to do it as she has PND with her first, and wasn?t feeling the greatest for weeks after the birth. Her hubby cooked the placenta with onions and mushrooms and even though she is a vegie, she said it smelt amazing.. and actually was really nice, and the day after she felt the best she had ever felt. She had it cooked as she couldn?t stand the thought of having the frozen tablet size bits.

[~mamaspice~]

I have just found this thread and find it very interresting. When I saw articles about eating placenta while I was pregnant with Charli I thought it was just gross.

Fastforward to now and I am seriously considering doing it next time round. After Charli was born I had major milk supply problems, PND, insomnia and a very unsettled baby. And I have read about how beneficial eating the placenta is for all of those things.
I could not imagine eating it raw though but I wonder if I had it dried and put into capsules would it still have the same therapeudic benefits?

[Salsa]

Moreso they will plant it at home but you even have to be careful how you do that, as it is so rich in nutrients that it can actually kill the plant.

We planted DS placenta with a tree we had put in a few mths earlier. We thought the tree would flourish, but it nosedived for a few years, I figured it was probably due to the nutrients from the afterbirth being too much for it...

When we told my M/w we would be keeping the placenta she offered some things we could do with it, including getting methods for cooking it - but she let us know that if we ate it she did not want to be invited to partake. I asked her if that had happened to her before and she said yes.

I used to have a korean friend who told me that in Korea they traditionaly offer you soup in the morning, insted of having cake. She said it was to represent a soup made of afterbirth - representing the afterbirth from when you were born. Its meant to wish you good health as well as remembering the time you were born.
She was wanting to make it for a friend of ours for her birthday as a nice surprise , but I knew the surprise our friend would get would not be the kindly intention suggested
Nice idea, but I wouldnt want to eat placenta, and I wouldnt even want to eat a soup for breakfast that symbolised my own placenta!!!

I have no problem with anyone who chooses to do that though, however as far as it being like liver, my friends placenta that I saw looked like a big healthy liver, but my DS one looked fugly - not appetising at all Im sure it was healthy but I was dissapointed it didnt look like my friends one

[DANNIIM]

This is a great topic! It completely grosses me out to even think about it but at the same time i think it is just like eating an animals organs too...really no difference. If the human race wasn't so used to being so modern and getting everything out of a tin this is probably what we all would do.
I envy anyone who is able to do this!

[Cyathea]

I am definitely eating my placenta this time, I had terrible PND last time (ended up suicidal) so anything I can do to try to prevent a repeat performance you bet I'll be doing.

I'm also intending to put a piece in my mouth immediately the placenta emerges, as I have a history of PPH, so any preventatives, again, most welcome!

I'd much rather have a piece of the placenta and hopefully stop any bleeding then to have to transfer to hospy (which I would do if necessary of course!)

And no hospital can refuse to give you your placenta if you request to take it home, it is YOUR property, they have no say over it.

[~mamaspice~]

Cyathea, I am increasingly leaning towards eating it next time too as I had PND, bad milk supply and insomnia last time round. The only thing is I'm personally not sure if I could eat it raw.

[Cyathea]

Cyathea, I am increasingly leaning towards eating it next time too as I had PND, bad milk supply and insomnia last time round. The only thing is I'm personally not sure if I could eat it raw.

I'm a vego, so I feel your pain!

The first bit after birth will be raw (yuck) but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do I guess!

The rest of it my lovely doula said she will cut into small pieces for me which I will then freeze, and have a piece a day, or when I feel I need to have it.

All the best with it, it takes some getting over the 'ick' factor at times

[Fuzzywuzzy]

There have been a lot of people who have said that they are going to eat their placenta and talk of people they know who ate theirs, but has anybody actually done it? It sounds pretty weird to me, but i'm curious at the same time

[Cyathea]

There have been a lot of people who have said that they are going to eat their placenta and talk of people they know who ate theirs, but has anybody actually done it? It sounds pretty weird to me, but i'm curious at the same time

I'll get back to you in a couple of months...