Hilary Duff, Chrissy Teigen, Kim Kardashian West, Katherine Heigl, Alicia Silverstone and January Jones have all ingested their placentas, either in pill form, smoothies or by some other method. (Tacos, alcohol-mixed drinks and truffles are the methods other moms choose.)
Labor and delivery, postpartum care
The most common placenta preparation — creating a capsule — is made by steaming and dehydrating the placenta or processing the raw placenta. People have also been known to eat the placenta raw, cooked, or in smoothies or liquid extracts.
January Jones
The Mad Men actress has revealed that eating her placenta helped prevent postpartum depression. “It's something I was very hesitant about, but we're the only mammals who don't ingest our own placentas," the mother of Xander Dane Jones, said. “It's not witch-crafty or anything! I suggest it to all moms!”
In most cases it is fine to take your placenta home for burial or consumption as long as you follow the basic health and safety precautions that are explained below. There are no laws or guidelines regarding the consumption of your placenta but there are precautions you can take to protect for your health and safety.
While there doesn't seem to be any proof that eating your placenta can help you, there is some proof that it can hurt. If you eat it "fresh" or raw, it might spread infection. Even processing your placenta by putting it in capsules might spoil it with bacteria or viruses.
Neither the ritual wash nor the shrouding is necessary for these babies. Placental tissue is considered part of the human body and should therefore be buried and not incinerated as presently happens in the United Kingdom.
Human placenta has been used traditionally in Chinese medicine, though the mother is not identified as the recipient of these treatments.
But placentophagy -- the practice of eating one's placenta after birth -- is relatively common in China, where it is thought to have anti-ageing properties, and dates back more than 2,000 years.
Some people who have eaten placenta say that it's kind of chewy and tastes like liver or beef. Others say that it has an iron taste.
"I started researching and read about so many moms who felt this same way and said the overall healing process was so much easier." Kim's sister Kourtney Kardashian ate her placenta after she gave birth to her third son Reign last year. And it's becoming a growing trend with more and more mums trying it.
Why Do the Kardashians Use Surrogates? Kim has been very open about the reasons behind the use of a surrogate to welcome children with her ex-husband Kanye West as the SKIMS founder suffered from placenta accreta during her first two pregnancies.
Have you ever wondered how celebrities seem to be able to bounce right back to their pre-pregnancy bodies so soon after having their little ones? Well, we've got to give credit where credit is due, strict diet and exercise routines can be important factors in dropping pounds after pregnancy.
Many still contend that the practice has health benefits for mothers. But experts on both sides say that eating the placenta has, at best, no benefits for men.
The dried placenta (紫河车, zi he che) is thought to be a healthful restorative and is sometimes used in preparations of traditional Chinese medicine and various health products. The practice known as human placentoghagy has become a more recent trend in western cultures nowadays.
The only verse that speaks of placenta consumption in the Bible paints it in a very negative light. We can find this in Deuteronomy 28:56, 57. The context shows that God is explaining to the Israelites what will happen to them if they do not uphold their promise to follow his commandments.
The nutrients that have passed from mother to foetus over months of pregnancy are, some believe, still packed inside the bloody organ and should not be wasted. Instead, the raw placenta could provide just what the mother needs as she recovers from childbirth and begins breastfeeding. And that means eating it.
Human placenta is legally classified as a food - this British doula tell us why it's suitable for vegans. Slicing, steaming and grinding up human flesh might sound like a job for Sweeney Todd. But one vegan from Hitchin, UK, is keen to get her knives out, as long as the organ in question is a freshly birthed placenta.
By burying the placenta it's like giving back to mother earth to let her know that a child has been born, so that mother earth can continue to nurture that Boorai, in particular the spiritual soul of that little person.
Do Hospitals Keep Placentas? Hospitals treat placentas as medical waste or biohazard material. The newborn placenta is placed in a biohazard bag for storage. Some hospitals keep the placenta for a period of time in case the need arises to send it to pathology for further analysis.
The Jewish Pregnancy Book says that, according to the Talmud, the placenta should be preserved in a bowl with oil, straw, or sand and buried in the earth a few days after the baby's birth to symbolize the cycle of life.
A lotus birth is the decision to leave your baby's umbilical cord attached after they are born. The umbilical cord remains attached to the placenta until it dries and falls off by itself. What are the risks of lotus birth? There are no research studies available on this topic.
Even further, there is zero research or evidence suggesting that ingesting placenta will do anything for a father. There have even been cases of moms' placenta ingestion harming their babies.