A couple of years ago, I encapsulated a placenta myself for someone else. It was a great experience — for me, anyway. (My husband wasn’t thrilled at the culinary work in the kitchen that day.) It was like reaffirming my wedding vows — I fell in love all over again, with the amazing placenta even as I steamed it, dried it, cut it and pulverized it in the coffee grinder.

As fascinating as the process was, I decided to NOT add placenta encapsulation to my dubious list of talents. I tell my clients, “Look, I’m a great birth attendant, but I’m no post-partum doula.” PE falls in the “post-partum” category if ever anything did, so I’ll leave it to those for whom it’s a passion and get back to my own calling. (Text me when you’re 5 cm and hurting.)

Besides, as crunchy as I like to pretend to be, I just can’t get over the fact that it’s human flesh. I’m pretty sure there’s a Levitical law about that.

But there are people who do placenta encapsulation and love it. If you’re interested, you can find doulas who do it. Some are even certified to do it through groups like Placenta.Benefits.info, a Nevada-based organization that’s all about, well, placenta benefits.

If you’re birthing at home, your access to your placenta is no problem. It’s yours to do with as you please. If you’re birthing at a birth center or a hospital, you’ll either have to make a compelling appeal, get it via court order or sneak it out. Apparently there is an Indiana law that prohibits medical facilities from releasing your own “tissue” to you.

I would encourage people to try to change the law. It is, after all, your placenta, and, handled correctly, it shouldn’t present any pathogenic qualities. Given new popularity for placentophagy, many states ARE addressing the “no-tissue” rule — sorry, you can’t have your kidney stones or removed gall bladder, either — and are making provisions for religious or philosophical reasons for wanting it.

Officials at LaGrange Parkview, South Bend Memorial and IU Goshen hospitals and the Goshen Birth Center confirmed that you may NOT remove your placenta from their facilities. LaGrange, however, said officials would consider a request, and Elkhart General Hospital Maternity Services coordinator Donna Stiver said this:

“On the rare occasion that someone wants to remove a placenta we follow our Infection Control policy for the Release of Pathologic Waste.  The placenta is placed in a secure container with a secure lid.  The container is strong enough to prevent any leaking.  It is labeled with the patient’s name and address and the fact that Elkhart General released it.  It is labeled with a biohazard sticker.  All is done to protect the waste handlers and the public.”

There are too many resource Web sites to list, so I’m listing just one here to get you started. If you have questions, be in touch, and I’ll get you more info (http://placentabenefits.info/about.asp).



Like a lot of mothers who suffer from post-partum depression, for Christina Menis of South Bend, it’s “take two a day and call someone in the morning.”

But for this post-partum period — fifth baby, baby girl Chessa, was born April 9 — Christina isn’t taking anti-depressants. She’s taking two a day, yes, but two a day of capsules she made by herself. For herself. FROM herself.

In what might be dubbed a new trend — only because we’re in the Midwest and a little, well, behind the curve — Christina is one of many mothers opting to ingest their placentas. The placenta, if you aren’t sure, is the about-2-pound organ a pregnant woman grows to sustain her baby, the “afterbirth.” It’s a gas exchanger and blood mover, essentially, and the origin of the baby’s amniotic sac and umbilical cord.

The meaty placenta is an amazing specimen, nutritively rich in iron, protein, vitamins, minerals and hormones, and when ingested, it’s said to help alleviate the baby blues, boost milk production, slow maternal bleeding and curb anemia.

And yes, I did just write INGESTED. Christina ingested her placenta, as in put it in her mouth and swallowed it. Ate it, essentially. It’s called “placentophagy.”

“Gross!” you say?

“I know. It was a little creepy to me at first, too,” said Christina, “but the more I researched, the more I became convinced it was the thing to do.”

Let me clarify. Christina — and most U.S. mothers — did not cut up and sauté her placenta in a tablespoon of butter, salt it and serve it over rice. She first put a tiny piece of the raw placenta in a fruit smoothie with enough juice to drown out any flavor. Then she took the rest of the placenta and dehydrated it so it could be ground into powder. She put the powder in gel caps and began popping the pills, two a day.

“I was absolutely amazed that I felt better so quickly,” said Christina, who said she was beginning to feel anxious, a familiar-to-her symptom of post-partum mood issues.

Like some 10 percent to 30 percent of mothers (depends on how you assess and whom you ask), Christina suffers from post-partum depression almost like clockwork starting somewhere about the third day after birth.

“It was so bad,” she said, “that I was willing to try just about anything the next time.”

So she did. A consummate researcher, Christina read that a woman in the immediate post-partum period who takes her placenta capsules might suffer less from those baby blues and might, actually, feel good.

Web sites boasting placentophagy’s many benefits are plentiful, as are pictures, “how-to” videos and scores and scores of testimonials from mothers who have done it. Hollywood celebrities like January Jones and Alicia Silverstone have made the news for doing it.



BUT, YOU ASK, DOES IT WORK?

Most everyone who does it says a resounding, “Yes!”  Christina says she noticed results right away, like within 12 hours.

“I was getting that anxious feeling — heart beating fast, couldn’t sleep, you know,” she said. Christina took two capsules. It wasn’t more than 12 hours, she said, before she felt better. “Normally I could just cry and be all over the place,” she said. “This time, I’m a lot better.”

Might that just be the placebo effect? Christina says it’s possible, sure, but two things about that: One, she’s taken anti-depressants in the past, and they didn’t offer the “placebo effect,” for her. In fact, she said, she waited a couple of days to begin to feel better with them.

And two, she says, who really cares? If the placenta helps because of its organic properties or because mom’s mind tells her it will, does it really matter? There are no proven real RISKS to placentophagy, so why not?

I know, I know — we still like proof. You certainly can find some scientific studies if you dig for them — evidence of rats making more milk when they were given amniotic fluid, for example — but the hard-and-fast science numbers about the risks and benefits of placentophagy are hard to come by.

The University of Nevada is presently conducting such research, thankfully. I’m suspicious science will prove what nature has already told us. You did know many mammals eat their placentas, right? And that the placenta is often found in products designed with nutrition in mind — like shampoo? Oh, and that margarine, conversely, is a molecule or so away from being PLASTIC and that vaccinations are grown on monkey kidneys, and we eat or inject them?

Christina says she’s sold on placentophagy, so much so that she has begun to offer her services in preparing placenta capsules to other post-partum moms and might just turn it into a full-fledged business. She also plans to save some capsules for menopause.

“The placenta is such an amazing organ,” she said. “It just blows me away that our bodies can grow this thing and nourish our babies all those months and that it can go on helping us through menopause. Just beautiful.”



Goshen News columnist Stephanie Price is a wife, mother, childbirth educator, midwife’s assistant and nursing student. Contact : wholefamily@goshennews.com, 269-641-7249.