After reading this website, I was even more convinced. I knew I couldn’t eat it raw, or blended in a smoothie, or cooked into a lasagna. Instead, I planned to have it dried, ground, and encapsulated. Here is how it went!
I had a c-section, and from the table, stretched out and connected to tubes, hoses, and things that go bing, I called out to the nurses and docs that I wanted my placenta bagged up to take home. They made me sign a release form that I understood I was taking home biohazard material (whatever) and I asked my sister in law to bring a cooler so that she could put it in my freezer.
My mother in law was so confused, but she has good manners, and kept her mouth shut about it. My husband’s 89 year old Chinese grandma, however, hugged me and told me I was smart to eat my placenta when we told her about it.
A few days after we came home from the hospital a tremendously good friend came over, picked up my frozen three pound placenta, and used the fruit leather setting in her food dehydrator. After she dehydrated it, she blended it in the blender, dried it, blended the dry disk, then capped.
It took her a long time, and I’m extremely grateful. What an endeavor!
Three weeks post partum I began taking two caps with each meal. I immediately felt less tired and weepy. I was sharp-minded and excited about life once more, no longer cracked-out, draggin ass. I began losing weight, and I got my appetite back, plus, my lochia drip hurried up and ended at four weeks after birth!
This was awesome, because it meant I got to have sex again, which was great because I also experienced a boost in libido. On top of all this, my milk production went through the roof.
So, while I know it’s not for everyone, and it did smell like funky beef jerky, eating my placenta really turned my birth recovery up a notch.
I’m TOTALLY rocking the placenta ingestion! I am 4 months pregnant and have already contacted a doula who is certified in this procedure. She even comes you your house and cleans your kitchen before and after the process takes place, BONUS! I have been researching the benefits since the birth of my son 4 years ago and am convinced this will turn my postpartum experience completely around for the good! I’m going to have a chunk blended into a smoothie right there in the birth-center before I even leave to get the most immediate benefits, and the rest will be encapsulated that night or the next day. I can’t wait! Woot!
That’s so awesome! I’ve been contemplating placenta capsules for 6 years or so, having read about it around the time my second child was born, but thought there was no way I could do it, because I have to give birth (if I get lucky enough to get pregnant again) in the hospital, and likely by c-section. How do you bring it up with your doctor, before the birth, that you want to keep your placenta? Is there any way they can stop you?
mine’s in the freezer too, for this very purpose – i gave birth two weeks ago – though i haven’t yet found the motivation to deal with my placenta – but probably should as i am Weepy McWeeperson at the moment. i too want to dehydrate and capsule mine – i have a friend who did this as well and same thing, said it rocked her world…
@ scribe – i had no problems whatsoever taking my placenta home from the hospital. i wound up in the hospital after an attempt at home birth started going awry, and i took a birth plan with me. by the time i got to the hospital i was crowning tho, so no one bothered to look at my plan. i was screaming demands while pushing, basically, but no one batted an eyelash when i said “we’re keeping that”. the nurse even picked it up and walked me and babydaddy through “placenta 101” first…
I was totally grossed out at first, but I had no idea of the benefits! I would not be able to eat it outright, but encapsulation I could probably do. This is definitely something I will be researching when I have another little. Does it really boost milk supply that much? That’s primarily why I would take it.
There was a time in my life when placenta eating was a gross out joke I told to my friends who got pregnant. I really wish I had known about encapsulation when I had my son, though. Next baby, I’m totally getting my placenta encapsulated, everyone says such great things about it, I wish I had done it with my son.
Most animals eat theirs, including my father’s dairy cows who otherwise turn away at anything the smells remotely bloody. I am waiting to bring up the matter with my partner and see how he takes it. Still trying to sell him on the home birth idea. His ex was a physician and loved over medicalising things.