My placenta 'print'
"Get ready for postpartum depression!"
I heard this a lot. (I was on anti-depressants most of my teen years, and all the women in my family are pretty crazy, so I was a prime candidate for the affliction.) People with best intentions, trying to prepare me for the horrors of bringing baby home. I personally do not share in this theory. I believe that even if you have a difficult baby, if you are prepared, knowledgeable and forge a deep immediate connection with your child (I personally did so through the process of natural childbirth) you can make the first few months at home bliss.
Well, I also had a little help from some ancient medicine...
After the birth of my son, my midwife promptly wrapped up my placenta and placed it in a tightly sealed hazmat bag for me and my husband to take home. When we arrived home, my mother placed the bag in the bottom of our fridge, upon recommendation... and there it sat... for three days. We forgot about it.
Apparently after three days, the placenta becomes a ticking time bomb, starts losing its nutrients and will become just another rotten throwaway in the garbage if not consumed immediately there after....
Yes. I said "consumed"! It is true, there are some people that whip out ye' olde recipe book, slather on olive oil and a little oregano and roast that baby up, but it all seemed a little too gruesome for my taste. Most people nowadays don't think twice about the placenta, they are just glad the whole birthing thing is over with and can I go to sleep now, please? My father buried both my brother and I's placenta in the back yard, and Okinawan's dry press the placenta of the son and give it to his wife when he gets married (funny, is that where we get the term "cutting the cord"?) I decided to have my placenta encapsulate.
After your birth, a woman comes to your home, and either does it there (per religious or cultural practices) or takes it to her house. The placenta is laid out and prepared and is then dehydrated, either with a fancy dehydrator, or with a conventional home oven - as
my personal placenta encapsulation specialist explains "
it will be steamed with ginger and lemon, sliced, and then left to dehydrate for about eight hours". Please mamas, if doing this task at home, let your husbands know that a roast is definitely NOT in the oven.
The specialist then powders the placenta and encapsulates it. The amount of capsules your placenta yields is of course particular to each woman and her own body. My placenta yielded about 180 pills - or three months worth. They are kept in the fridge and are good for 6 months, or 3 years in the freezer. Many women save half of their pills, and take them when they hit menopause, I personally have to live my life time once more over before I am even close to menopause, so I am in the process of taking all of mine.
I had no problem taking my pills, no icky feeling, no gross out factor with the whole idea (which, admittedly, I thought was pretty abstract when I first heard about it) I just took them every morning with my prenatal and postnatal vitamins... One thing I did notice was that after a week or so, the pills took on a faint funk. They weren't spoiled, it was just a very mild... afterbirthy kinda smell. And taste. Understandable, and livable. I have to take them with some kind of fruit juice, so as not to have to put them on my tongue.
For a week or so, when my son was around 2 months, I ignored taking them, not wanting to deal with the smell or taste. I found that after a few days, I started to feel like real crap. Overwhelmed, exhausted, complete loss of energy, and for the first time, depressed. This went on for a week or so, crying spells, insomnia, apathy to my son crying, lazyness; I kept letting out all of my anger and frustraition on my poor unassuming husband. I was definitely in the realm of postpartum depression. I never thought for one second about those pills.
While cleaning out my fridge one evening, I found them. Pulling two out, I popped them in my mouth. The smell and taste was not welcome, but amazingly over the next few days, I started to get my groove back. And not a moment too soon, as my son began teething, and went from sweet quiet angel boy, to a screaming, fussing hell raiser.
The science when it comes to placentophagia (the practice of eating placenta) is rather vague. Many claim that the consumption of the placenta gives not significant health benefits, that if you are well nourished, it will make no difference. I would have to agree. If you sit down to a big meal of placenta steak, in my mind, it is like taking an entire bottle of vitamins in one go. It will not all absorb, and will probably just make you kinda sick. But, if you were to spread out the dosage, say over the period of three or four months, the benefits would be greater.
Considering the placenta is an organ, one must assume that it contains the same - or near the same- vitamins and minerals of most any other cooked organ. Riboflavin, iron, your Bs, niacin, zinc etc. As well as serotonin and oxytocin triggering hormonal stimulants (supposedly) which helps bring in and enhance your milk supply (something I NEVER suffered from). Iron is particularly important, as a new mother is an easy target for anemia.
It may seem far out, but posed with the option of taking a mood stabilizer for PPD and not being able to breast feed (one of the most important and life altering things you can do for your child) or taking my daily dose of placenta, I would do it all again.
