If all mammals eat the placenta, that must mean at one time we did too. But do all mammals eat the placenta? Whales do? Deer do?
If it is processed, wouldn't the nutrients be lost? And do hospitals let you decide what gets done with the placenta? For all they know, I'm taking it home to feed to my cat.
Ingesting the placenta: Is it healthy for new moms?
Debi French was dreading the birth of her fourth child. She wanted the baby, to be sure, but she was terrified of being visited again with the overwhelming despair that came over her in the days and weeks after her last delivery.
French's midwife offered her an unusual remedy: She suggested the expectant mother ingest her own placenta as a means of allaying postpartum depression. The temporary organ was saved, dried and emulsified, then placed in gelatin capsules and taken by the mother in the months after the birth in December 2004.
"Before I actually did it, my friends thought it was weird," says French, 29, of Spokane, Wash., whose fifth child is due in August. "But when they saw how fast I recovered from my birth and they knew my history, they thought it was pretty neat. Now I have a lot of friends planning to do it."
The practice, known as placentophagy, is far from widespread and is received with great skepticism by more traditional medical experts. But among a small but vocal contingent of expectant mothers and proponents, it is strongly believed that the organ created by the woman's body to pass nutrients between mother and fetus and is expelled after birth is rich in chemicals that can help mitigate fluctuations in hormones believed to cause postpartum depression.
"I feel that it is what we as women are meant to do with the placenta," says Jodi Selander of Las Vegas, who offers encapsulation services and is collecting testimonials of women who have ingested placenta for her website, placentabenefits.info.
The practice is raising eyebrows at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Spokeswoman Kris Mejia says the FDA considers that some statements on the website are making medical claims and will be looking more carefully into the matter. "Human placental capsules that make treatment claims … must be accompanied by well-designed and controlled clinical studies to support approval/licensure," Mejia wrote in an e-mail.
Selander says she does the encapsulation as a service and doesn't charge for it. She also says she sought guidance from the FDA but got no clear answers.
Still, Selander says, "every single mammal ingests its placenta. We are the only mammal on Earth that went away from this practice."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-07-18-placenta-ingestion_N.htm
If it is processed, wouldn't the nutrients be lost? And do hospitals let you decide what gets done with the placenta? For all they know, I'm taking it home to feed to my cat.
Ingesting the placenta: Is it healthy for new moms?
Debi French was dreading the birth of her fourth child. She wanted the baby, to be sure, but she was terrified of being visited again with the overwhelming despair that came over her in the days and weeks after her last delivery.
French's midwife offered her an unusual remedy: She suggested the expectant mother ingest her own placenta as a means of allaying postpartum depression. The temporary organ was saved, dried and emulsified, then placed in gelatin capsules and taken by the mother in the months after the birth in December 2004.
"Before I actually did it, my friends thought it was weird," says French, 29, of Spokane, Wash., whose fifth child is due in August. "But when they saw how fast I recovered from my birth and they knew my history, they thought it was pretty neat. Now I have a lot of friends planning to do it."
The practice, known as placentophagy, is far from widespread and is received with great skepticism by more traditional medical experts. But among a small but vocal contingent of expectant mothers and proponents, it is strongly believed that the organ created by the woman's body to pass nutrients between mother and fetus and is expelled after birth is rich in chemicals that can help mitigate fluctuations in hormones believed to cause postpartum depression.
"I feel that it is what we as women are meant to do with the placenta," says Jodi Selander of Las Vegas, who offers encapsulation services and is collecting testimonials of women who have ingested placenta for her website, placentabenefits.info.
The practice is raising eyebrows at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Spokeswoman Kris Mejia says the FDA considers that some statements on the website are making medical claims and will be looking more carefully into the matter. "Human placental capsules that make treatment claims … must be accompanied by well-designed and controlled clinical studies to support approval/licensure," Mejia wrote in an e-mail.
Selander says she does the encapsulation as a service and doesn't charge for it. She also says she sought guidance from the FDA but got no clear answers.
Still, Selander says, "every single mammal ingests its placenta. We are the only mammal on Earth that went away from this practice."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-07-18-placenta-ingestion_N.htm
