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Seven (weird) things you can do with a placenta

Date: 2011.12.14 | Category: Birth | Tags: eating your placenta,encapsulating your placenta,placenta art,placenta cosmetics,placenta uses

A baby’s placenta starts to form early on in pregnancy. Although hardly anyone gives this unique organ much thought, a properly functioning placenta is of extreme importance throughout most of pregnancy. Do you simply discard this fascinating organ after your baby is born… or are you going to do something (weird) with it? Here are seven things people have done with placentae. Care to join them?

1. Eat it

Plenty of women eat their placenta these days. The thought of it may be a bit gross, but there are theories that eating your placenta will make you feel better, give you a boost of nutrients, and perhaps prevent or halt postpartum hemorrhage. I’ve personally done it, and while I am not convinced that eating the placenta has any true benefits, it was certainly an interesting experiment (especially for a vegetarian).

2. Bury it

Some families bury a baby’s placenta and plant a tree at the site, to honor the baby’s birth.

3 . Make placenta art

No kidding – pressing the placenta onto a large sheet of paper results in interesting “art”. If you don’t believe me, just look at the picture above. If you are having a baby, you can make “tree of life” type prints all of your own. They’ll make original material to hang up in your baby room. Or next to your coffee table, perhaps.

4. Encapsulate your placenta

OK, this is a variation on eating the placenta, but perhaps one that is a little more palatable. Placenta capsules are said to help women be more energetic following birth, and to keep postpartum depression at bay. Some women even keep them for years to help alleviate menopause symptoms when they get to that stage.

5. Make your skin beautiful

What do you put on your facial skin? Unless you make your own creams, your own placenta won’t be part of your cosmetics. But you may be beautifying yourself with the placenta of another female, human or other mammal. This says it all: Placenta cosmetics.

6. Knit a placenta

Really. Here you are, for your enjoyment: knitted placenta.

7. Offer it to research

If you give birth at a hospital, you can donate your placenta for research. Or to end up in cosmetics, perhaps.

4 Responses to “Seven (weird) things you can do with a placenta”

Momma Jorje 11/12/16 15:23

Some chop up, freeze and THEN eat the placenta, possibly even in smoothies.

I’m totally planning to encapsulate mine and the woman doing it apparently offers a print of it as well.

Here’s hoping the claims are true!
writenow 11/12/16 21:44

Frankly, there is no scientific evidence that eating your placenta does anything for you. Having said that, I felt AWESOME and highly energetic following my son’s birth. I am not sure what caused that, but I wonder whether eating the placenta played a role. Nice to see you again, wishing you a smooth birth soon!
Issa @ LoveLiveGrow 11/12/17 21:26

One of the only things I’m sad about from my c-section is that I didn’t see my placenta. I mean, how cool is it that I grew a whole new organ! I don’t know if I would have tried to eat it, but I do know that I would have loved to just look at it and poke it and marvel at it. Maybe next time! :-)
Rara 12/01/17 19:52

I too was pretty bummed out about not getting to see my son’s placenta. Not nearly as upset as I was about being in the hospital and having a c-section, but still bummed nonetheless. I didn’t even think about asking to see it as I was preoccupied with looking at my baby in between bouts of throwing up. Had I not been so heavily medicated, I may have thought to tell them I wanted to keep it. Had our homebirth plan been sucessful, I was going to bury it and plant something on it as you listed in your previous post.