Eating placenta
The placenta is an actual organ inside a pregnant mother’s body.
I’m all for research of the placenta, and extracting stem cells for treatment.
But cooking placenta to eat or to pulverize into pills seems just a little too close to cannibalism to me, comparable to cooking and eating human liver. Maybe it’s just me.
Here’s the start of the Time magazine story (read the rest at the link) – a second person’s account – followed by video, which kind’ve grossed me out. And it’s hard to do that…
There is so much you can’t know about your spouse when you get married, like that one day she will want to eat her placenta. But there are 2 things you don’t argue about with a pregnant woman: what she eats and that being full of life indeed looks sexy. So when Cassandra told me that for $275, a woman would come to our house, cook Cassandra’s placenta, freeze-dry it and turn it into capsules to help ward off postpartum depression and increase milk supply, I said, “$275 is a bargain compared with the $20k I’ll have to spend to tear out our kitchen immediately afterward.”…
Most mammals, Cassandra explained, eat their placentas, to which I countered that most dogs eat their poop. I stopped arguing there, figuring that like many of Cassandra’s hippie ideas – the compost bin, rubbing lemon on her underarms instead of deodorant – she’d give up on this in a few weeks. Even as the due date approached and she was still set on eating her placenta, I couldn’t imagine that she’d remember to request it from the doctor after the most physically draining experience of her life. This is a woman who, 9 times out of 10, forgets the bag of leftovers at the restaurant….
[Graphic attribution: Time]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
And now, as I prepare to read Rajanna’s accomplishments, I’m glad we suspended the rule that winners must hold valid medical licenses. I see Rajanna’s was revoked last June. Rats.
And speaking of rodents, health inspectors found a dead mouse in Rajanna’s Kansas City chop shop before shutting it down. They also found unmarked medications in an unlocked refrigerator.
But those are not reasons enough to bestow Rajanna with the Malachi Award.
No, what distinguishes Rajanna was the revelation that employees witnessed him “microwave one of the aborted fetuses and stir it into his lunch,” according to testimony by KCPD Detective William Howard last year before a legislative committee.
Come to think of it, giving Rajanna the Malachi Award might be bad for his health. It might tempt him.
This is a source of protein.
“kid’s meal”
Parts is parts.
I’m pregnant with my first, planning a natural birth, and I keep seeing people talk about this… I just can’t imagine. It’s creepy to me too, Jill. I don’t think I could bring myself to do it.
This is the first I’ve heard of this. If a woman can eat her placenta, what’s the next step – eating her aborted baby for nutrition reasons? Don’t laugh, it could happen. This crosses the line in so many ways. This placenta lady in the story, Sara, makes $275.00 to supposedly turn flesh into pills. Where does one buy pill-making machinery? (The pills could be placebos for all we know.) Could they be tainted with fecal matter? Why do women fall for these fads? Come on ladies. If this were a good thing, I think cave-women would have been doing this aeons ago.
It’s a SHAME TO WASTE good Protein!
New from General Ills — Placenta Helper, in delectable, mouth watering flavors: Chipotle Delight, Chinese Five Spice Lo Mein, Zesty Italian with Portobella, Mean Bean Burrito…
Iron Chef Cannibal jumps on the bandwagon with Champuru-Plus with Goya, Placenta Nori Maki,
Whoa, that sashimi idea is over the top…..
“The placenta is an actual organ inside a pregnant mother’s body.”
The placenta, while inside the mother, is actually the unborn child’s organ. It is part of the baby’s body, not the mothers. Pretty neat, ehh?
My comment, BTW, wasn’t so much directed to what Jill said as to the article since it seems to be saying that the placenta is the woman’s, when it actually is the child’s.
Jill please do we have to go here with a pro-life blog. I am really confused why we need to go to the ultimate gross level. I have worked in healthcare so I am not squesmish at all but this is over the top. I have refered your website to others for prolife updates but I will not do it again unless you cease from this type of post. This brings out the weirdos like Pharmer. Can we stick with promoting life and stopping abortions?
The placenta arises from the chorion frondosum of embryonic origin and decidua basalis of maternal endometrial origin.
So it’s both people’s organ
Hi Jill,
I find this very interesting vs gross. The health benefits of organ meats is unparalleled. Raw is best, but dehydration is likely favored. [such is available from http://www.rons.com . The powdered organ meats are from organically raised cows from New Zealand.
The placenta is a very special organ and has traditionally been used to: rejuvenate all kinds of body systems, especially the skin.
Of great interest is the way circulation occurs for the infant and its placenta. The placenta can have as much as 3/4 of the infant’s blood. For that blood not to be locked into the placenta, it is very important to allow the chord enough time to drain the placenta of blood (and probably of stem cells, too). Most modern delivery does not even consider this.
One delivery scheme even allows the infant and his/her placenta to remain attached post-birth for about one week – for complete drainage. The placenta does not spoil but shrivels before separation. Apparently, this is the norm for chipanzees in the wild.
Prolifer L., Thanks for recommending my site to others. I really appreciate it.
it doesn’t matter what I post, someone is going to comment in a way that offends others.
The article/video were in Time magazine, so while it grossed us out, there is something about all this that is intriguing to liberals, which puts me on alert. In my mind this is related to abortion. I’ve posted before (and have been highly ridiculed by liberals) that preborn babies have been made into meals. This isn’t so far from that, IMO.
BTW, I’m making this comment from 30,000 feet up, my first experience with in-flight internet!
My husband does not appreciate the silver bowls I use to cook with. Reminds him of the placenta in the silver bowl that he was introduced to…4 times!!
I do not mind when hearing stories from friends how they take the placenta home and bury it next to a tree but this is EW!
I do appreciate your response Jill but still think everything does not have to be addressed. I still don’t get it, why this deserved a whole article or in what way this promotes life, maybe a blurb on the Life Links minus the picture of the woman preparing to cook the placenta would have been a better choice, with a note why you think this has some relevance to the prolife issue. I am interested in what other prolife posters think about this. God bless.
“Of great interest is the way circulation occurs for the infant and its placenta. The placenta can have as much as 3/4 of the infant’s blood. For that blood not to be locked into the placenta, it is very important to allow the chord enough time to drain the placenta of blood (and probably of stem cells, too). Most modern delivery does not even consider this.”
That’s fascinating. So the placenta should probably be kept higher than the baby for a while before the cord is cut…. very cool. I wonder if doctors/midwives know this… I don’t even recall seeing the placenta when my baby was born. (I don’t think I was looking for it.) :) I was too tired and I’m squeamish.
Prolifer L,
Pharmer was being facetious. He/she is pro-life. (YAY)
:)
There is the “threat” to stop all promulgation of prolife news and info from a very large website, because one thread involves a topic which is unappetizing.
There is the immediate and reflexive concern for its own feelings and the supremacy of those feelings above all other things.
Which populations exhibit this kind of personal “sensitivity” and employ it to extort and control the actions of others?
What have prolifers gained by apologizing and attempting to placate these people?
Well, we now have Obama royally screwing up the works, for one example….
Prolifer L,
It’s Jill’s blog. :)
I find this interesting and disgusting at the same time.
Pro-lifer L,
Just read your second post. I think this is gross myself and I chose not to view the video. I do think knowledge is power.
Thanks, Janet, but that one has a different agenda.
Call it Pharmacists Radar …… it’s how we detect fake scripts, and related practices.
Words absolutely escape me!
We eat lots of weird things:
raw fish/oysters
Hotdogs
jello (pulverized animal bones)
honey (bee-vomit)
Also most fruit is ripened plant ovaries! Pitocin and cervidil are derived from pig semen/bull semen (I forget exactly which) so anyone who has an induction, is injecting semen into their bloodstream! Anyone who wears makeup is probably wearing something that contains the cells extracted from placentas, as placentas are sold to manufacturers of makeup. I really don’t understand the squeamishness here. We would, as a society, prefer to medicate ourselves with artificial chemicals in the form of antidepressants than to use what God gave us: placentas. When mammals eat the afterbirth, they do so for good reason. The nutrients in the placenta help to reregulate a body that has gone through a gestation and birth.
I nearly died after the birth of my first child. She was born in a birthing center and after the birth, I hemorrhaged badly. My midwife gave me several shots of pitocin and I continued hemorrhaging. She then gave me a piece of the placenta and put it under my tongue as we were waiting for the ambulance for transport to the hospital. I have only vague memories of this, but by the time the paramedics got there, the bleeding had stopped. I believe that my midwife’s actions saved my life. The thing is, some people do not respond to pitocin normally. Pitocin is synthetic oxytocin and the placenta is full of oxytocin after a birth. The oxytocin is what causes the uterus to contract and stop bleeding.
John M. is right on and from my reading I gather a lot of midwives, at least, are familiar with the benefits of waiting to cut the cord. Don’t have the numbers in front of me but infants’ hematocrits are much better when, if possible, the cutting is delayed (& I do recall keeping the placenta above the level of the baby was the method, Janet!)
Another interesting factoid: Ojibwe mothers would bead their children’s indis into a pouch and it would belong to the child. It signified understanding where one came from so care was taken not to lose it!
The pills aren’t something from a “pill making machinery.” It’s actually very easy to do. The pills that were shown were the typical two-piece capsule (remember the kind that you can pull apart and thousands of tiny beads bounce all over?). Dehydrated placenta is like beef jerky then it’s basically crushed into a powder, then put into a capsule. Easy peasy. I’ve never done this but have tons of friends that use “natural” products and have made me peppermint capsules to take during the early part of this pregnancy to help stave off severe morning sickness.
I don’t think I’d ever be able to bring myself to see this process in real life, but would be willing to take the pills. Especially if it helped to reduce my severe post-partum depression.
I am not here to argue or to make any demands just think there are better topics to inform and promote life especially for new people browsing that are prolife (I don’t care what most hard-core pro-aborts think). Ever heard “keep the main thing the main thing”. I give up though and see I am out numbered. You are right it is Jill’s blog.
Hi Pharmer.
Isn’t the placenta genetically the child’s, though? As in, it has the same DNA and not that of the mother? Also, I thought the placenta grew from the… is it the primitive streak (which is part of the embryo)? Something like that?
The more I read the comments here, the more fascinating this story becomes. I’m able to look at it as a natural thing instead of being related to abortion. Still, I wouldn’t want to see aborted placentas used for the commercial production of these capsules, which is most likely where this will lead. Could we trust our government to do the right thing? Nah.
I’d be interested in seeing the benefits against PPD. That would be a really GOOD thing for so many women.
(Isn’t the human body an amazing thing?)
Um, I don’t see how putting a piece of placenta under your tongue will stop uterine hemmoraging. That doesn’t make sense, at all. That’s completely gross. I’m glad that any time I am under a midwife’s care, that I am already in a FULLY EQUIPPED HOSPITAL.
I know that cervidil is made of pig semen (I’d never consent to the stuff if I had any other choice). I didn’t know pitocin was made of semen. I’ve had pitocin added to an IV bag during labor twice without anyone asking my permission (both times, I was angry about it — don’t they HAVE to ask unless it is an emergency??). I don’t (and did not at the time) feel that I needed pitocin but the Army hospital seems to give it as a matter of routine. My second child was born about three hours after I arrived at the hospital dilated to 4-5cm.
Sometimes it’s best not to really think about where our prescription medication comes from. Premarin comes from pregnant mare urine, and I’d contest that the mares are kept in inhumane conditions for the purpose of collecting their urine (forced into quick repeat pregnancies regardless of their health, living life in a tiny stall with a collection device for the urine, etc.). It’s sad.
Consuming placenta is just plain DISGUSTING. I don’t care what tribe or people around the world do it. I don’t care if half of the rest of the world does it. GROSS! I’m glad I don’t use conventional cosmetics.
Bobby,
The placenta is the interface between the baby and the mom, and by immunological necessity one side has to be from the mom, and the other side has to be the baby. That part which is from the mom, of course carries the genome of the mom.
Yes, the primitive streak gives rise to mesoderm which gives rise to the chorion and the trophoblast. But the dicidua basalis is from Mom.
I am not here to argue or to make any demands just think there are better topics to inform and promote life especially for new people browsing that are prolife (I don’t care what most hard-core pro-aborts think). Ever heard “keep the main thing the main thing”. I give up though and see I am out numbered. You are right it is Jill’s blog.
Original threat retracted??
I don’t see what this has to do with abortion. I considered turning ours into pills to ward of PPD, turns out I didn’t need to do that. It was very gross. We ended up burying it under a tree. I prefer the idea of something gross to something like psychotropic drugs that can cause suicide and homicide or the actual murder of your baby. The placenta would just be wasted otherwise. BTW, the tree that we buried it under has been doing very well compared to the others. I’m all for using this organ for whatever benefits it has to the mother after it has served its purpose to the baby.
By the way I don’t know if you realize this, but the placenta eating is supposedly done by other mammals… I am pretty sure I will never do it, but I don’t think at all that it is a liberal vs. conservative abortion vs. anti-abortion issue. I have many friends who have talked about this in the natural birthing community and most of them are conservative anti-abortion people. And regardless, if we don’t want to promote alternatives then the other choices women have include those drugs that do cause spontaneous abortions and are used for inducing abortions by mothers and probably doctors too. I am talking about psychotropic drugs. The abortion pill has also been dubbed electroshock in a pill.
Ug ok I guess I missed the quote about how most mammals eat placenta in the original article. Apparently, or so they say, there are nutrients and hormones that can ward off PPD… like I said I thought about doing it myself. It was very gross but still, if I were desperate enough, or if some other mom wants to do it, more power to her. I have talked to people who said it worked. And like I said I prefer that to them killing their babies. A la psych drugs.
RE: placenta / blood / baby’s blood: Midwives do know this and this is why when you give birth naturally they encourage you to not cut the cord until it stops pulsating. However if you are on pain meds they usually cut it right away I have heard to minimize exposing the baby to those meds in the umbilical cord blood.
I just remembered something. In my original comment I said that they didn’t ask my permission for the Pitocin during labor — I was just sitting here thinking about it and for my second delivery, they gave it with no permission at all but my first, they DID ask permission. I only gave consent under duress though (I was hurting and the doctor claimed my contractions weren’t strong enough to stay admitted to the hospital, so she wouldn’t let me stay unless I allowed them to give me Pitocin). Needless to say, I just hurt and wanted to get on with having the baby! I sure was glad that particular OB was no longer at that post when I went to deliver my second.
The experience I had delivering my second (same hospital, different OB) was much preferable. A lot of that had to do with the fact that I did it naturally (no pain meds, the pitocin I didn’t get to have a choice about).