Placenta eating is back on trend! Though popular in the late 1960s – 1970s, it gained new exposure about a couple of years ago via vocal celeb moms and mommy bloggers. They spoke about how after they’ve given birth, they keep their placenta to consume for “nutrients”. The placenta, according to Wikipedia, is, “an organ that connects the developing fetus to the uterine wall to allow nutrient uptake, waste elimination and gas exchange via the mother’s blood supply.” That sounds delicious!
“Chill out, Boris, it’s fresh.”
On placenta consumption, Mad Men actress January Jones was quoted about a year ago in People Magazine saying,
It’s a very civilised thing that can help women with depression or fatigue. I was never depressed or sad or down after the baby was born, so I’d highly suggest it to any pregnant woman. [...] Your placenta gets dehydrated and made into vitamins. It’s something I was very hesitant about, but we’re the only mammals who don’t ingest our own placentas.
In the April UK issue of Glamour Magazine, the actress admitted,
I should never have told anyone about that. But it’s not gross or witchcrafty. Nor am I putting it in a shake or eating it raw.
And that’s how Betty got fat.
Holly Madison (of The Girls Next Door and other Playboy endeavors), though, has no problem talking about her nomming on placenta. As quoted in The Huffington Post,
I heard it helps women recover faster and I want to recover as quickly as I can!
Let’s look at the science behind this. Does eating placenta have any health benefits for moms?
While researching placentophagia (the act of eating placenta, a word I didn’t know existed until my research) I found the leading expert in the field, Mark Kristal, PhD, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University at Buffalo and Buffalo State College. He and fellow colleagues Jean M. DiPirro, PhD, associate professor, Department of Psychology and Alexis C. Thompson, PhD, research associate professor, UB Department of Psychology and a research scientist in the UB Research Institute on Addictions just published a massive paper on the subject. Here are some key points about it and in their volume, Human Maternal Placentophagy: A Survey of Self-Reported Motivations and Experiences Associated with Placenta Consumption, No, Seriously, You Guys. (Okay I added the “No, Seriously, You Guys” part but the rest is real.) The italics and bold are for my emphasis:
They point out that the benefits of placenta ingestion (as well as the ingestion of amniotic fluid) by non-human mammalian mothers are significant. It provokes an increase in mother-infant interaction, for instance, and increases the effects of pregnancy-mediated analgesia in the delivering mother. It also potentiates opioid circuits in the maternal brain that facilitate the onset of caretaking behavior, and suppresses postpartum pseudopregnancy, thereby increasing the possibilities for fertilization. “Human childbirth is fraught with additional problems for which there are no practical nonhuman animal models,” says Kristal, citing postpartum depression, failure to bond and maternal hostility toward the infant. He says ingested afterbirth may contain components that ameliorate these problems, but although there have been many anecdotal claims made for human placentophagia, the issue has not been tested empirically. “If such studies are undertaken,” he says, “the results, if positive, will be medically relevant. If the results are negative, speculations and recommendations will persist, as it is not possible to prove the negative.” The upsurge in recent anecdotal reports of the benefits of taking placenta by new mothers, irrespective of dose, method of preparation, or time course, suggests more of a placebo effect than a medicinal effect. “People will do anything,” Kristal says, “but we shouldn’t read too much significance into reports of such exceptions, even if they are accurate, because they are neither reliable nor valid studies. My own studies found no evidence of the routine practice of placentophagia in other cultures, findings supported by a recent extensive study by anthropologists at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “The more challenging anthropological question is,” he says, “‘Why don’t humans engage in placentophagia as a biological imperative as so many other mammals apparently do?’ because we clearly do not do this as a matter of course today and apparently never have. Perhaps for humans, there is a greater adaptive advantage to not eating the placenta.”
Show of hands, how many of you actually read that?
Basically, most of the benefits of human placenta consumption are more than likely due to the placebo effect. There is proof that it helps with non-human mammals, but not quite enough research to prove that it’s helpful to all human mothers. It seems like it’s on a case-by-case basis; what may appear to have benefits for one mom may do nothing for another. As always, it’s also important to realize that anecdotes are not facts. Here’s my thing I don’t understand about the “we’re the only mammals who don’t _______ so why do we?” argument. Animals do a lot of things that we don’t. We’re also the only mammals who don’t eat each other. I never really understood the approach of looking at an animal and saying, “We need to do what this is doing.”
What do you think? Did you, or anyone you know, consume placenta? And if you’re pregnant or think you ever will be, would you? Even if it turns out there aren’t any scientifically or medically proven benefits?
Animals do it, so we should do it too… Animals eat poop. Can’t wait for that to catch on…
While I mostly agree with the author, I don’t think the article is very well written. As someone else mentioned, this reads as very judgmental and closed minded. As a journalist asking “what do you (the readers) think?”, you should be sure to completely separate facts from your own opinions. It’s fine to add your opinion, but you shouldn’t do so until you’ve described the subject fully in a neutral tone.. The way the article is currently written makes it hard for me to trust the writers credibility, since it seems as though she only used research that backed up her own opinion.
Are you KIDDING? The author cited gigantic paragraphs of texts from a medical journal!! How is that “her opinion”? She cited evidence and asked, “What did you think” to engage the reader. Did you actually read this before commenting?
I didn’t say she didn’t use research at all, I said she only used research that backed up her own opinion. I’m sure there’s got to be at least a couple professionals out there who are advocates of ingesting placenta that she could have quoted.
You don’t have to be an angry rude butthole about it. Obviously you didn’t read what I wrote clearly enough before you commented.
Anyway, I was going to make another point. She fails to mention that the placentas are made into vitamin capsules, which turns down the ick-factor by at least, like, 80%.
Although I agree that in most journalistic scenarios you want to evenly represent both sides of the story, I think that mindset is a HUGE problem in science journalism. Even if there are “at least a couple professionals out there” who support placentophagy, it does not make sense to give them equal space as the majority who do not. This legitimizes a fringe scientific theory, which is one thing when it comes to politics but not ideal for empirical science. Think of the round world vs. flat world debate – there still ARE a few people who believe the world is flat, but it’s such a silly fringe idea that we wouldn’t want to legitimize it by treating it with the journalistic “two sides to every story” approach.
The basic reason the afterbirth is consumed in other mammals (who are not in a private hospital room with a TV and a phone or at home in a home delivery scenario) is to greatly reduce the attraction of predators or other animals that may hurt or kill the infant(s) and/or mother.
The placenta and the remnants of a delivery are quite bloody and this scent can carry for miles alerting a potential predator that a meal could be near. Additionally, in some species, males who are not the father of the baby are known to kill neonates of other males. Removing the placenta for the area (by consumption since there are no IKEA trash bins around in the wild) by consuming it is a quick easy way to accomplish this goal.
Absolutely. Wish I had with my first, and will do so with my second. Before our daughter was born, I had heard of this but was too grossed out by the thought…but after becoming a mother and knowing our bond, I would do anything to make our lives together more mammalian and real. There seem to be plenty of women who have done this and have no regrets…so I say “Why not?”
Actually, while some animals in nature eat each other, it’s actually not very common at all among species.
Additionally, I disagree with saying that humans being only mammals that do not eat our placentas doesn’t mean anything. If they are all doing this, then shouldn’t that be a red flag to us? What stops most people from eating theirs is the ‘gross’ factor or the fact that society views it as extraordinarily odd.
I find this article to be incredibly judgmental and closed minded.
I’ve just heard of this myself for the first time recently after my SIL decided to it after giving birth to my nephew. Personally, I find the ick factor too high and I’m with you on the whole “why do we need to do what animals do?” thing. But on the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for the placebo effect if the placentophagia (<– fun word.) in fact does nothing really useful. If a post-birth mom is suffering from post-partum and thinks this will help or if they think it'll be beneficial overall with baby and recovery, then I say," go for it." Can't hurt, right? lol
What an intriguing post. I had never heard of this before. The line that popped out in this piece the most for me was this: “People will do anything.” Indeed. To each their own, but as humans we have other sources for nutrition after pregnancy so I’m not sure placenta consumption was meant for us. You learn something new every day. If women are having positive effects from this, go for it I guess. I wouldn’t be comfortable doing it though. http://venusblogs.com/eating-antimatter-2/