Pass the Placenta

 Disclosure: This is a gross post. I gagged twice while writing it. You’ve been warned.

An acquaintance of mine recently asked me what I plan “to do” with my placentas after the babies are born.  I didn’t really know what to say because until recently, I forgot there were even options of what to do with said organ after it fulfilled its purpose. I'm going to use cute, cuddly cats to illustrate the sequence of what I felt during this conversation. 



Surprise. Why are you asking me this?



Disgust. I really don't want to think about this.

Sickness. "I don't feel so good right now."

 

Entrapment. How am I going to get out of this conversation?

This person then went on to tell me about all the proven medical benefits of ingesting the placenta after birth, including:

• Increased/faster milk production
• Prevents postpartum depression
• Return to pre-pregnancy size faster

Even after hearing of all these wonderful benefits, I was ready to be done talking about it. I did decide to do some reading about the subject later because I have about 8 hours a day to kill and I can only hit “refresh” on my favorite blogs so often before starting to lose my mind.

The practice seems to be more common in other countries (maybe they don’t have enough chickens or Burger Kings?) and many mammals engage in this act as well, although their motives seem to be different than humans’. There is a new way to “ingest” it: It’s called placenta encapsulation. Basically, they dry it out, grind it up into a powder and put it in capsules for you. Have you ever tried taking a Tylenol but it started to dissolve before you had a chance to swallow it? I would not want to experience that with these things.

Anyway, bottom line for me, I definitely do NOT plan to whip out a Ziplock baggie and take home my left over lady parts for consumption after babies get here. I suppose it isn’t very nice of me to say people SHOULDN’T do this; but as for me and my house, we’ll be serving tacos, not placenta lasagna.