I Regret Eating My Placenta

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/i-regret-eating-my-placenta/?src=tp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzy2wZSg5ZM

This was discussed in the quiddities thread but I feel like it could use its own thread

So why did I gobble placenta
So why did I gobble placenta
So why did I gobble placenta
So why did I gobble placenta

I just

don't

understand

Eating placenta isnt that weird of a thing - I know at least one couple who've done it. That article otoh is a massive load of anecdotal BS, and its so obvious she either had a reaction to the herbs or it was a psychosomatic response (or coincidence). I'm not a huge supporter of many alt therapies but geez.

then I'll raise my hand as a total square because placenta eating just seems O______o to me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placentophagy

every single picture on that wiki page makes me want to puke

That article otoh is a massive load of anecdotal BS, and its so obvious she either had a reaction to the herbs or it was a psychosomatic response (or coincidence). I'm not a huge supporter of many alt therapies but geez.

otm. lolled @ this line:

"While the Internet is teeming with individual pro-placenta stories, they are as anecdotal, and in my case as absurdly off beam, as alien sightings."

um, you mean like individual anti-placenta stories?

really enjoying my placenta meal

Its meat for vegans!

(ps eww)

tbf I don't fuck with organ meat anyway, I'm just as ew abt eating liver as I am placenta

placnta whites

i regret eating yr placenta, girl

more like that sounds mighty unplacenta!!

let me placate you with some placenta

I think if you tried it, you might be placentally surprised.

Lol A+

My friend shared the placenta with his wife right after he cut the umbilical cord with his teeth.

Someday she'll write "I Regret Writing 'I Regret Eating My Placenta'"

I was wondering if Alicia Silverstone would write "I Regret Pre-Chewing My Baby's Food and Feeding It to Him Like a Bird" at some point.

I Regret Not Eating My Placenta

I Regret Wating My Parents

my parents saved my placenta in a jar in the refrigerator and gave it to me for dinner on my 18th birthday

not really

i regret eating in placentia

http://www.placentia.org/images/pages/N337//PlacentiaFresh_2010%2520web.jpg

This Must Be The Placenta (Naive Munchery)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placenta_(food)

I Regreat Eating Polenta

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sp20eGUtEsQ/Tab8pAy79HI/AAAAAAAAAHg/LQyyyXYPxwQ/s1600/polenta.jpg

http://i34.tinypic.com/fwuhxt.jpg

i regret eating my hymen

i regret eating yr placenta, girl

Jodeci b-sides mined some weird territory

This has come up so much lately! Is it because of J Jones? It's not like it's a new thing or anything. Because it's come up so much lately I have been thinking about it a lot and would probably give it a shot. I could never placenta sandwich or anything (like this lady http://www.momlogic.com/2009/04/i_ate_the_placenta.php) but I would look into the pills. This came up on Friday night while I was out with friends and prompted one of them to say "I don't get it dude, you're totally normal in general but when it comes to birth and kids and stuff you're a complete weirdo". :/

this webpage is very O_o: http://www.twilightheadquarters.com/placenta.html

Yeah. There is no way I could ever imagine doing that. I just couldn't stomach it. The pills would be different I think. Not saying it's something I would definitely do but I wouldn't immediately rule it out either. Also the NYT article is so dumb. So much more likely that the herbs caused that lady's reaction.

I have a cousin who is a doula and she has been pushing placenta munching big time on facebook. I'm having a hard time showing my support...

Tbh eating anything once is such a small change in diet that it'll have no long-term effect. There's no specific vitamin or mineral composition you're going to get from one serving of placenta. If you ate placenta every day for a period, maybe something would happen.

In other words, superstition.

Unless our placenta is made of peyote or something, I guess.

so you can't get poisoned from one dose of cyanide, right?

http://www.grimmgallery.com/files/7813/2103/2767/EggEatingEgret1.jpg

I, egret, eating my placenta

you have to eat it every day for a period (haah)

If there's a specific nutrient or compound that exists in a unique composition in the placenta, I am more than willing to hear about it, dayo.

Otherwise, go back to eating yr virgin boy eggs or whatever

what?

why don't you tell me to go eat some egg foo young while you're at it

What? I was just referencing other weird food stuff from the o_O thread

you're an asshole

wtf? Dude, you're the one trying to compare a homogenous known poison to a byproduct of the human body in an attempt to claim there could be some magical powers to placenta. I pulled out another weirdo ilx example that has just as many scientific measures of success.

if this thread becomes a clusterfuck I will give you guys some kind of prize

meanwhile many xxxxposts to DJ Mencap; I lol'ed

plz say the prize is cooked placenta

DINGDINGDING

New thread title: I Regret Arguing About, And Eating, Placenta

I Regret Opening A Placentaria

I Regret Placenta

tbh I am still taken aback that someone actually told an Asian dude to go back to eating virgin boy eggs without thinking about how that would come across

Tbh eating anything once is such a small change in diet that it'll have no long-term effect. There's no specific vitamin or mineral composition you're going to get from one serving of placenta. If you ate placenta every day for a period, maybe something would happen.

In other words, superstition.

― mh, Sunday, April 1, 2012 1:20 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it could have bacteria that affect yr intestinal intestinal flora after one serving

wtf is a virgin boy egg

DJP otm

DJP, Jim in Glasgow otm

Oh shit, I am sorry dayo. I meant it more as a "this dude has been skeptical of OTC painkillers, thinks placenta may be cool though" thing. I'm not above jabbing you on your skepticism/lack of skepticism on things, but I was dumb and shouldn't have used that example. DJP way otm, I was way off base. I'm sorry.

lol wtf is a virgin boy egg and what is its racial/cultural significance

thanks, mh.

now let's look at this picture of a teddy bear made out of a placenta

http://a.abcnews.com/images/Business/ht_placenta_teddy_bear_101109_ssh.jpg

Holy shit

lol wtf is a virgin boy egg and what is its racial/cultural significance

This. I thought it was just a really unwieldy way of referring to one's 'seed'.

(For the sake of my own sanity, I'm pretending that the picture above isn't a thing that exists.)

I think it's in the o_O thread. Some village or area collects the urine of male schoolchildren and pickles eggs in it and they have amazing health benefits. Most of the eggs were unfortunately on my face a few moments ago, though.

Placenta bear

What

I can't

Heeeeeeeelp

It challenges our perceptions of what a placenta is, and looks like, while keeping the wholesome nurturing image, amirite

NO URWRONG

it's like someone saw Coraline too many times

Placenta bear is your baby's little friend, they're all cuddled up in yr womb

;_;

NOT MY WOMB

I, egret, eating my placenta

Wait, back up. That was brilliant.

I know right?

when i was in college, these friends of mine lived in an apartment complex above the managers' unit. the managers, a husband and wife team, were on the ground floor, and they had a small, fenced yard. after a while, they also had a baby for some reason, and they buried the placenta in the back yard. my friends knew this because the managers did a placenta ritual for it beforehand. anyway, their dog dug up the placenta and ate it.

did the dog reget it, I wonder

I've posted ite before, but when I was in college, one instructor was out for a week when he and his wife had a baby. When he came back, he cracked a joke as "Well, you know, we're French Canadian, so we ate the placenta." I think I was one of only a couple people to giggle because he deadpanned it but it was very much in his sense of humor.

He then had to explain what a placenta was to a couple girls in the class who didn't get it. This was another chronicle in my "I have no faith in my classmates" saga.

I Regret Eating My Placenta Teddy Bear

so are the placenta pills made out of your placenta or someone else's?

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/eating-placentas-cannibalism-recycling-or-health-food/

thank you sarahell, I've been wanting to ask the same question

http://c0180701.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/placentasalade.jpg

warm placenta and poached-egg salad

what if there was a mix-up and you got some other mother's placenta? would hilarity ensue?

http://c0180701.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/placenta3.jpg

caramelized onion and green apple crostini with seared placenta

what if there was a mix-up and you got some other mother's placenta? would hilarity ensue?

― sarahell, Sunday, April 1, 2012 2:34 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

struck by another mother's placenta

It's supposed to be your own placenta in the placenta pills. I think if there was a mix up and you ate someone else's placenta then

http://www.stomptokyo.com/img-m1/freaky-fri1.jpg

These foods are too white collar, where's my chicken-fried placenta steak?

http://cdn.static.telepixtv.com/photos/momlogic/gallery-images/2009/04/pic4_full.jpg

“How I prepared the leftovers the following morning, between two
luscious slices of panini bread.” – Kathy

xp - like the KFC double down but with placenta?

punani bread

ok, that panini one is making me ill

nnnnyaaah

also loooool carl agatha freaky friday ftw

If you made a gyro, would you use placenta as a substitute for the meat or for the pita? Or would you puree it and make placenta tzatziki?

I guess you could do all three!

plax on plax on plax

I would cry a lot in the shower

i imagine since it's protein you would substitute it for the meat?

Puree it and make a terrine for bahn mi imo

grind it up into meatballs

placenta marinara, mmm mmm mmm

I'd just like to thank my brain real quick for the masterful disconnect it's been maintaining to allow for my continued and vomit-free participation in this thread.

otm

Placenta, placenta, eggs and placenta

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006043001226

Tom Cruise IS his baby's placenta in Mission Impossible 6

One writer on Yahoo! Answers justified placentophagia by rationalizing that she eats eggs and placenta is basically human egg white!

Eating placenta is officially banned on UK TV. Seems a little unreasonable.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/101944.stm

It's your own fucking placenta in the pills. People aren't going to mix is up jeez. An ilxor recently talked about putting hers in a smoothie which, while I don't think I could manage that myself, was really interesting to hear about. I seriously don't understand why people lose their minds about this but they seem to every single time it comes up. I get that it's a little strange because its not the done thing but if it does work in the ways in which its supposed to then I could totally understand the appeal.

otm

xxp dunno if there was actual placenta eating in this but there was placenta pill-making and placenta art.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/how-to-be-a-good-mother-with-sharon-horgan/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1

I get that this is a thing people do

But I reserve the right to be skeeved out by it and find it weird and deal with those feelings through humor

I can't help but be really immature about it because it freaks me out.

"humor"

We're watching a cat give birth right now!!! She'll had two and we watched her chew the cord off of both. I'm sure she'll eat the placenta when it's over, which most animals do? I don't think it's weird at all or even gross. What I do think is telling is who ever upthread referred to the placenta as a byproduct of the human body. I think whether there is science to back up any reasoning behind consuming the placenta is beside the point, it can hold much symbolic value for the parents since ya know it was the babies life support.

every time i think we're crunchy i'm reminded that there are ppl way more crunchy than us

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jzfni1oFNY

x-post - lol. Just when I think that I'm about as far from crunchy as they come I realize that in certain ways that is so not true at all and that I'm really a dirty hippie at heart in some ways.

http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/images/artists/304x304/warren-zevon.jpg

enjoy every placenta

I think a placenta would make a nice hat.

True story, waiter used the word placenta in the place of polenta. No one said a word.

http://i.imgur.com/UNe4K.jpg

lol

Hahah

hat is making me hungry, tbh

For those who regret cutting off the placenta too soon, there is Lotus birth?

http://i.imgur.com/3T5Cj.jpg

See lotus birth seems okay to me...it's just the eating I have a problem with, mentally, not the placenta itself.

lol nakh

How come people get grossed out by the idea of eating placenta or drinking human milk, but not eating cows's muscles or liver, or drinking from a cow's udders?

(obv vegetarians need not apply here)

because western culture socializes us into thinking those activities are okay

see also: why it's fine to eat shrimp/lobster but not insects

Trayce c'mon lay off the udders seriously it's gross

xp - insect eating is a new trendy thing, i read somewhere

who made the rules about what ppl can be grossed out about

lolling @ the beret

I think whether there is science to back up any reasoning behind consuming the placenta is beside the point, it can hold much symbolic value for the parents since ya know it was the babies life support.

Oh most definitely, I think it's cool as a symbolic thing or as a spiritual gesture but if you're having some crazy concoction for possible health benefits, I don't think there's much there. It's meat, just like any other, only it came out of somebody.

I think I'd probably eat it if it was shown to be some sort of extravagant flavor or something or if I was really into the holistic ideas, but... I am not otherwise vegetarian so I have sources for meat that didn't get thrust out a vagina.

Not everyone is grossed out by human milk, either! I think the main taboo here is that you are eating something from a human -- if it's somebody else, then you have the notion of some sort of implied connection with them. If it's your own, then there's an entire other set of taboos implied -- lots of disorders involving eating things that come from your body.

idk I feel the science is inconclusive, lots of mammals do it, it's just this one thing you do one time, nbd

Had almost forgotten about this -- dates back to when I first started posting here.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/faq_hh_img.jpg

just seems to me that you're kind of subscribing to some ideas that have no basis if you're drying things and grinding them into pill form. like, what if the placenta magic is in the moisture or you're supposed to eat it raw?

WmC is now my hero

yeah if you're gonna eat a placenta eat it whole hog

still though it's this one thing you do this one time at this one point in your life nbd

btw saying "the science is inconclusive" when there are no studies with variables that have actually concluded anything can be an endorsement of... anything

this isn't to say there isn't a possible science-based reason for eating placenta that will be found, but basing shit anecdotally is like me saying, "Well, before I leave for work every day I spin around three times counterclockwise. Days where I don't do that, I feel ill in the afternoon." So then if you say the science is inconclusive due to a undersized sample group and lack of ability to create placebos... we might as all spin, right

^^ this brings up the question, has anyone tried the placenta of other animals, or do the fuckers slam it down so fast that people haven't been able to intercept it? we need research to see if it might be tasty

going to the grocery store, find a package in meat aisle labeled "WHOLE HOG PLACENTA"

there haven't been that many placenta studies done based as per carl agatha's link

science studies by themselves aren't conclusive either, could be a failure of methodology or not testing the right variable or w/e

animal placentas are used in shampoos iirc

and shampoo tastes like shit, so there you go

Q.
E.
D.

I have sources for meat that didn't get thrust out a vagina

do tell

chicken for one?

didn't _just_ get thrust out

hen gots a gina. plus a cloaca! lucky.

CLAM!

I don't care if people want to eat something they just gave birth to, but there are no science-based reasons to eat a placenta. And as far as the "humans are the only animal that doesn't!" argument goes, we're also the only animals that don't eat their young. And we are the only animals with NICUs. So I mean, eat it if you want but arguing that placentophagia is healthier or better than throwing it away is just beeswax.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/101944.stm

The ITC passed the comments on to the BSC, which upheld the complaints on the grounds of taste.

O RLY.

Humans also believe in god with no science-based reasons for it. It's all about vibes man.

Nobody said either of those things itt, Carl. There are no science-based reasons to do so because studies haven't been done on it and I'm pretty sure that they're not going to be done any time soon either. The science isn't there but neither is evidence saying that it isn't beneficial or, perhaps more importantly, that it's in any way harmful.

tbh the worst thing about this whole phenomenon is it impinges on favorite joke, in which a rural farmer is guided through a home birth by his reverend, sighing at the end, "The baby came out fine, but I'm having a hard time getting her to eat the placenta." If women are willfully eating placentas, it's killed one of my best-loved punchlines of all time.

lol

I feel dumb, hows that work as a joke - cos cows eat them?

Yeah and a rural farmer would be used to a cow doing so and just expect a woman to the the same if he didn't know otherwise.

what does the reverend have to do with it?

well, now the joke is REALLY killed

btw just because we don't eat babies that doesn't mean we couldn't, we just tend not to because of tradition

similar to masturbating in front of babies

Part of the reason I wanted to eat my placenta in the first place is that I am fascinated by the human body and all that it can do.

woah this is deep, bro

this person is an idiot

Winner:

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..Are you going to eat that?
March 25, 2012 at 9:55 p.m.ReplyRecommend11

Humans also believe in god with no science-based reasons for it.

In my opinion, equally as ridiculous as placenta eating.

I was trying to paraphrase the joke since I assumed it was familiar?

This reminds of 12th grade when one of my classmates got pregnant and was in the hospital having her kid. The teacher passed around a card for us to sign and I wrote "Save me the placenta! Yum!"

The class valedictorian had a shitfit when he saw my attempt at humor and he scribbled the whole thing out.

We had to get her a new card lol.

a+ work whiney

valedictorian otm

but if it makes you feel better, I once suggested "ultra slim fast" as a teacher gift for an enrichment teacher (who wasn't present) in front of my teacher and the entire sixth grade class

Only way that would be parallel is if you suggested "an ultra slim fast placenta smoothie."

Your mommy's all right
Her dinner tonight
Might just seem a little weeeeeird
Placenta
Placenta
Baked in a cheese souffleeeeeeeee

oh ffs

That is going to be in my head all night now.

can u tell the whole joke Abbs?

deric I am irl lol'ing right now

There are no science-based reasons to do so because studies haven't been done on it and I'm pretty sure that they're not going to be done any time soon either. The science isn't there but neither is evidence saying that it isn't beneficial or, perhaps more importantly, that it's in any way harmful.

That's why I said I don't care what people do with it. But while no one in this thread is making the health argument, it's a super common line of reasoning (and the reason why the woman in the titular article ate hers) so it's not like I'm coming out of left field with my comment.

yeah the basic rule of thumb about medications and breastfeeding is don't take them unless you have to

Hoisted on your own placenta

I usually ask for the secret menu after giving birth

assuming this article has been a big deal on the internet for a little bit I just hope that this now means that yelp reviews of hospitals will now let me know where the best placenta is

I Regret Eating My Placenta ... in my vagina?

file under your terrible ideas:

a boutique placenta-based homebrew operation called: Ferment-a Placenta

I have deep thoughts about this matter but I don't feel like this is really the thread for it. obThread, I think in Glasgow they have a deep fried placenta on a stick that you can get for 75p

"deep thoughts"

you ate placenta didn't you?

ha no. but friends of mine in the 80s were Santa Cruz ppl i.e. pretty into things like the placenta and what to do with it to honor the profound transition between pregnancy & parenthood, etc., and it's all very crunchy granola stuff but I also always thought it was pretty otm crunchy granola stuff; as a symbol, the placenta's powerful, the next nearest thing to it is the breast for the next year or two but that's still something that the baby eats from, not this actual lifeline connection to which there are few analogues. ex-girlfriend of mine did a "give the placenta to the ocean" thing so heads up surfers, there's placenta in those waves

iirc that's no big deal and is called chumming

omg too much

"pretty dece waves today, pretty intense chumming in the shallows"

stoked about this thread now, thanks thread

The 2nd offering from Southern California's killerest surf band. Back with a new line-up, and a new energy, churning out a more fierce, brooding, dark, energetic sound. If you liked Chum's first album The Dewey Decibel System then you are going to love For Those About To Surf!

frankly this news makes me concerned about not knowing this trend of placentas in my libraries

you shouldn't be able to give a placenta to a library

I'm happy you brought honor into this thread, really don't get why everyone was hung up on science, like anybody does anything based on scientific studies.

aside from my grandfather who lives and will die by Consumer Reports magazine.

that's a good magazine

Your mommy's all right
Her dinner tonight
Might just seem a little weeeeeird
Placenta
Placenta
Baked in a cheese souffleeeeeeeee

gee oh ay tee

so heads up surfers, there's placenta in those waves

― tempestuous alaskan nites! (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Monday, April 2, 2012 12:58 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

iirc that's no big deal and is called chumming

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Monday, April 2, 2012 12:59 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is where the thread jumped the shark, right?... right?

...guys?

FLAG POST

Found this:
http://www.med.yale.edu/obgyn/kliman/placenta/articles/Plac%20Hormones.html

The last three paragraphs sum it up.

tried to read that, but gave up at the part where the villainous synthroblast is the major source of placental hormones. cannot be true.

Proteins and hormones from the placenta are piped directly into a fetus! That doesn't mean any of those are bioavailable through digestion.
Maybe we should be liquifying and injecting it.

actually, that was pretty fascinating, the idea that the placenta regulates not only the uterine environment but the mother's biological functions in order to produce a healthy child. cool beans.

Proteins and hormones from the placenta are piped directly into a fetus! That doesn't mean any of those are bioavailable through digestion.

nor does it mean that they aren't. basic point is that the placenta is biologically unique, as that was in question upthread. also, the fact that all placenta-producing animals eat the placenta does at least suggest that it's a useful, healthy food source. not necessarily some miracle food, but probably nutrition-dense and worth eating.

I kind of like the idea that the mom is annoyed that the baby has been eating half her food for 9 months and THATs why she eats the placenta

also, the fact that all placenta-producing animals eat the placenta does at least suggest that it's a useful, healthy food source.

or that there are other reasons? I mean, this is a great explanation but the idea that the mother can't go look for food with newborns and it's readily available, or that eating it could ward away predators are other possible meanings. it could be any of these, all of them, or none of them.

get outta here w/ your science

hehe

It could be aliums

fwiw the soul is in the placenta and the mother must eat it for safekeeping. When the baby reaches a certain age, the mother passes the soul to the child.

I've had time to think about it some more and I still find it a little creepy but I guess it is kind of a nice idea.

I have no desire to have a baby, but that being said I can't imagine anything more fulfilling or beautiful than growing a child inside you....I spent almos the whole 9 months around my sister when she had her first and I thought it was the most amazing, cool thing, all the changes she went through every day, let alone every month. and there's something kind of connected I guess about placentophagy that at least on a theorretical level is kinda cool. So I can say that I guess I respect it? But only maybe people I know or like or who aren't weird attention-seeking crunchy hippies :)

Also for all my being skeeved out if any ilxors do this ever I want a full report including recipes <3

or that there are other reasons? I mean, this is a great explanation but the idea that the mother can't go look for food with newborns and it's readily available, or that eating it could ward away predators are other possible meanings. it could be any of these, all of them, or none of them.

― mh, Sunday, April 1, 2012 9:03 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if the mother is predictably weak following birth and has little energy to search for other food, then there's every reason to think that evolution would favor the production of a placenta that is safe & healthy to eat. sound system: nutrients are siphoned off by the mother's body during gestation in order to feed the placenta/embryo. after birth, some of those nutrients are returned to the mother via placentophagy in order to help her recover and produce milk. question then becomes "why wouldn't you eat the placenta?"

When the baby reaches a certain age, the mother passes the soul to the child.

this is done through the boobs, iirc

Why wouldn't you? Because you can just order pizza or go to taco bell.

sweet hypothesis c, but you are just making shit up that fits

this is all speculative. i admit that. but we can deduce certain things with a reasonable degree of certainty, given what we know of evolutionary dynamics:

if placenta-eating were in any way harmful, there would be no way for it to become widespread in the animal kingdom. evolution would not permit this. nor would evolution so universally select for a behavior with no clear benefit. we can ascertain these things through logic alone. also, since consumption of the not-harmful-and-likely-healthful placenta is so widespread, it's reasonable to think that evolution would in the long run favor the production of a placenta that is worth eating in various ways. none of this is ironclad proof, but nor is it "just making shit up".

Why wouldn't you? Because you can just order pizza or go to taco bell.

lol this is where the discussion gets weird to me bcz ppl are like "how could people eat PLACENTA ooh gross! they should eat totally inedible garbage instead"

like imo if you have eaten at mcdonald's as an adult then you don't really have much to say to people who'd eat placenta, or people who'd swallow tacks, or w/e

like, in the absence of scientific evidence to the contrary, i think simple logic dictates that you should eat the placenta

but i ate a macnugget once, so what do i know?

in the absence of legislation I propose a constitutional amendment requiring all americans to eat placenta

like, in the absence of scientific evidence to the contrary, i think simple logic dictates that you should eat the placenta

― preternatural concepts concerning variances in sound and texture (contenderizer), Monday, April 2, 2012 12:39 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

4 out of 5 yoga instructors agree

life liberty and the pursuit of placenta

Do all domesticated animals eat placentas every time? If it was for other reasons found out in the wild, would domesticated animals still do this? I had a cat that would put stuff in his food bowl to "hide" his food. Someone told me that is what wild cats did. My other cat wouldn't even cover her own poop. No need too, she was safe in a house and knew there were no predators.

Same cat lady told me that cats covering poop had something to do with covering their tracks.

cats covering their poop is just a trend, cats who buck this trend are presently on the cutting edge of catshit fashion

Ha!

what if you combined placenta eating with butt chugging?

if placenta-eating were in any way harmful, there would be no way for it to become widespread in the animal kingdom.

isn't eating one's own poop widespread in the animal kingdom?

i never realised that there was quite so much placenta in a placenta. those people upthread had leftovers, for some reason i always thought placenta was more amuse-bouche quantity

i mean, i thought it'd just be like eating an oyster or something

no no it's a lot of food - "placenta" is actually a Latin contraction of "pluribus" ("from a lot") + "cena" (evening meal)

isn't eating one's own poop widespread in the animal kingdom?

― sarahell, Monday, April 2, 2012 1:35 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i meant "so widespread". most mammals eat the placenta, even those that don't eat meat and even if other food is available. like, so far as i know (and correct me if i'm wrong), cow moms will always do this. poop eating is much less common.

from wikipedia, on the idea of health benefits:

The placenta contains high levels of prostaglandin which stimulates involution (an inward curvature or penetration, or, a shrinking or return to a former size) of the uterus, in effect cleaning the uterus out. The placenta also contains small amounts of oxytocin which eases birth stress and causes the smooth muscles around the mammary cells to contract and eject milk.[citation needed]

yeah placentas are huge

my second child was born at home and the placenta (finally) came out and we put it in a bucket

the midwife asked if i wanted to see it better (while my wife was getting cleaned up) and i was like, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity

we took the bucket upstairs, took out the placenta and spread it out on a plastic shopping bag. the midwife had a little tool that she used to show me all the different parts of it. it has an anatomy all its own!

what i never really realized before then is that the blood supply in there is totally separated from the mother's blood supply; there's like a one-way filtration system in place. so if the mother gets some kind of disaease or something, the baby is relatively safe. it's totally amazing

all that said, i would never eat one in about a million years why because i am not a cannibal thnx

tracer your midwife sounds kind of awesome

aero are you kidding me with the latin

hum, according to the oed in classical latin it is actually a kind of cake

the modern german word is Mutterkuchen

101 placenta facts

Yeah they're surprisingly enormous. Google it if you're not too squeamish. Re Tracer saying he'd never I don't actually get why any fathers would. The only reason I can see wanting to do this is because there might be some health benefits and that would only be for the mother. If I was a guy and wanted to show some solidarity or something I'd, i don't know, give the damn thing a hug or something but I don't think I'd have any interest in eating it at all.

have you hugged a placenta today?

Call me crazy but I find a pretty great way to honor the transition from pregnancy to parenthood is recognizing THE HUMAN BEING YOU CREATED.

Oh and not eating it

"healthy boy delivered this morning at 4:32am!! 6 1/2 lbs. he was delicious"

I get the oxytocin element to this but your brain produces oxytocin when you bond with anyone, right ? I mean I really have no memory of eating my moms placenta let alone my dad's, my brothers and sisters, my husband's, my own children's, any of my friend's, my 3 cats and Great Dane's, the silver Jews natural bridge placenta,nor the cast of The Bold and the Beautiful's placentas although lord knows those peeps know how to breed

lol this is where the discussion gets weird to me bcz ppl are like "how could people eat PLACENTA ooh gross! they should eat totally inedible garbage instead"

TBF, I don't think eating placenta is necessarily gross. I'm sure if Rick Bayless or someone seasoned it properly and put it in a taco, I'd devour it right up. I just wouldn't expect anything magical to happen.

I like to tell people that "placenta" was originally pronounced "play center" and that mothers used to put newborns inside of it to hide them from predators.

http://o.onionstatic.com/images/articles/article/21/21195/NIB-Mcdonalds_Playcenter-R_jpg_635x345_crop-smart_upscale_q85.jpg

I tell people that it comes from the same root as the word "pita" and "pizza" and was originally served on flatbread as the main dish in a hearty southern european mid-day meal

rihanna with her new hit song, birthday placenta

placenta centa centa centa centa centa centa centa centa centa centa centa centa centa centa centa

"under my um-bi-LIC-al"

I like to tell people that "placenta" was originally pronounced "play center" and that mothers used to put newborns inside of it to hide them from predators.
+Chris Hanson and a plate of homemade cookies just to be extra safe

I insist on calling my birthday my "placentennial" and every year I demand that I be bathed in blood, it's a source of considerable tension within my family

contenderizer not getting science at all, probably not worth contenderizing with him on it.

also, tracer's midwife was awesome as hell

Turns out there is a childbirth class on my floor at work today. Would love to walk in and pretend to be the instructor there to talk about placentophagy just to see the reactions it would get.

throw out the baby, raise the placenta

walk in eating a panini full of suspiciously dark red meaty filling

"i love it when they're still warm"

i regret making that post

The placenta is really amazing though, like how awesome is evolution that every mammal is born with a giant Hot Pocket?

fruity placental croutons

can we go back to this phrase for a second:

So why did I gobble placenta

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj7P95oTiAk

don't watch this video about placenta pâté, y'all. don't do it.

so not watching that

I think burying the placenta underneath a fruit is a reasonable way to honor/dispose/digest what the placenta symbolizes for us. I don't think I'll ever have the stomach to eat it and I have a stomach for organ meats, but I guess I'm not that crunchy.

I bet it would make your veggies grow AMAZING

http://blindgossip.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/baby-plant-2-anne-geddes.jpg

so that's Geddes' secret!

Seems like the best way to gain any health benefits from a placenta would be to eat it raw and fresh. Cooking, drying it out...does't seem as potent. Placentas can carry a lot of information regarding problems in birth and delivery and future problems with the child. Apparently autism can possibly be detected in the placenta. To do this htugh costs money and having a hospital cooperate with Yale University's guidelines and then you have to pay Yale to study it.

contenderizer not getting science at all, probably not worth contenderizing with him on it.

lol, nice dodge

big caveat that i'd add to what i said before is that, while it's probably reasonable to suppose that the animals that regularly eat the placenta are not harmed and might even benefit from doing so, there's no way to know whether & to what extent human beings fall into that category

not pretending to be doing any scientific research here, merely speculating logically based on what we do know

has anyone established calorie counts and serving sizes for placenta?

idea for american pie 8:
- girl gets pregnant
- girl gives birth
- placenta gets baked in a pie
- guy has sex with placenta pie
- omg hilarity ensues

btw the guy is girl's brother.

Make sure you vaccinate your placenta before eating it.

http://www.placenta-pro.jp/english/concept.html

Or you could just eat some horse placenta.

c, you did a straight up "Well, A then B, and B then C, so it stands to reason that since A then C"

I'm not going to spend all day shaking my head and going back and forth. I get where you're coming from in that anecdotal ideas etc but sheesh watch it on the basic logic problems.

you did a straight up "Well, A then B, and B then C, so it stands to reason that since A then C"

modus pwnens

yah

do herbivores eat their placentas?

please centa, don't birth em

putting the plant back into placenta

I had a dinner table conversation with my parents about this article yesterday (lol) and my mom said she never saw a cow eat one in all of her farm kid years.

but did she eat one?

I had a dinner table conversation with my parents about this article yesterday (lol) and my mom said she never saw a cow eat one in all of her farm kid years.

"Placenta: You Can't Eat Just One!"

I really need to stop reading this thread while eating

eating a placenta, that is! yum!

could get messy

make sure you use a placenta matt for the plate

over the placenta table

I just realized, we could revolutionize competitive eating by introducing a placenta division

Competitive Eating Category: Placentas Dipped Into Jars of Mayonnaise

dayo I misread that as "I really need to stop eating this thread while reading"

I regret eating the "I Regret Eating My Placenta" thread

tbh i feel that 'placenta' is too clinical a name for it, i prefer the vivid imagery supplied by the traditional term, 'afterbirth'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPKigfGYwKE&feature=related

OK I don't even want know know what that's about.

Wonder what you all would make of Lotus Biths: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_birth.

While I can understand wanting a natural third stage labor (delivery of the placenta) hanging around with it for a couple days for auric reasons is just level of hogwash I can't get on board with. The whole reason I'm maybe willing to understand why some women would eat the placenta is because there *might* be health benefits. I don't really get the "spiritual" or symbolic placenta-related stuff at all. I remember reading a story a couple years ago about a lady who made her placenta a bag. It had pictures. Will try to locate.

jacob mentioned Lotus births upthread. I felt a little more okay with it than with eating the placenta. though my mind started to wander and I started to think about half-assed lazy people doing lotus and maybe not taking care to not make the placenta get smelly and that could just get really awful really quickly

both options seem kinda, I dunno, fraught with the possiblity of your meaningful amazing experience just being kinda gross and weird.

Air is allowed to circulate around the placenta to dry it, and to avoid its becoming malodorous. Sea salt is often applied to the placenta to help dry it out. Sometimes essential oils, such as lavender, or powdered herbs, such as goldenseal or neem, are also applied to encourage drying, to help to neutralize the smell of decomposition.

this is vile, wtf

what happens if you go the lotus birth route but the umbilical cord never detaches, and then the kid is like seven or eight years old walking around with a dessicated placenta in a fanny pack

severing the umbilicus with your own goddamn teeth seems a lot more 'natural' then leaving your baby connected to decomposing birth meat for days i mean

than*

I was freaked out by reading that you swaddle the baby with the placenta!

pigs in blankets lol

placenta jerky

Wonder what you all would make of Lotus Biths

Haha, I saw this typo and in true Star Wars Nerd fashion thought

http://images.wikia.com/aliens/images/7/77/Bith.jpg

?

I believe that the umbilical cord naturally clamps soon after birth so there's really no need for it to be left attached as far as I can tell. I guess it's meant to be a more gentle to let it detach itself but idk. I just can't imagine sitting around FOR UP TO 12 DAYS with a placenta sitting next to me in a bowl. As mentioned before - they're surprisingly big. I know about this stuff partly because of what I studied but partly because I find it totally fascinating. To each their own obvious and I fully support people making their own decisions about labor and delivery and all that but I don't really get this one. What if you delivered in July and there was a heatwave.

http://i.imgur.com/qvlOk.png

I think I must have skipped the 12 days part

Yeah forget that.

Let's eat.

hahahahahahaha

this is vile, wtf

― i think this is serious (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, April 3, 2012 12:36 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

WTF. It's medical waste.

It is medical waste produced as part of an emotional experience, so it can have some symbolic value, but it's objectively no different than an extracted gall bladder.

It is medical waste produced as part of an emotional experience

women usually end up evacuating their bowels while in labor, might as well hold on to that too

Veg grrl, get off your high horse w/ your being grossed out. That's just too rich from the lady who's leering at me, just waiting for me to have spleen failure so you can plop it on your grill.

"this is my lotus poo"

Yeah, OK. You don't have to be jerks about it! For all we know some ppl around here might have done it. Maybe there is a really good reason to beyond the symbolic and I just haven't found it yet. idk.

;_: I just wanted to make a "lotus poo" joke

they are free to chime in, then, and we will gladly apologize

imagine if the Santorum family had done this and were carting around their stillborn child and the attached placenta

okay too far

I didn't mean you! It was actually several x-posts. Sorry!

Oh! I wasn't WTF-ing at you, ENBB! I was generally crying out to the general afterbirth-munchers of the world.

I say that, btw, because I'm pretty sure that might be one in particular. Also MH, seriously.

Je55e you have called me out, tis true. I am 100% hypocrite when it comes to spleen vs placenta.

well, it's a valid possibility, combining the people who want to respect the life of a baby that didn't make it and those who feel the placenta stays attached or whatever

lol Jesse I've been saying throught this thread that, while definitely unusal, I don't think it's the craziest thing in the world and that I'd probably at least research the possibily of doing it when/if I ever have kids.

leeeet's move on, mh

don't trust anything I say, I was a formula baby

it's taking me a while to get down with the idea, I've not really been that exposed to this kinda stuff so my reactions ITT have pretty much been my brain being all O_O people do WHATNOW

However, proponents of lotus births view the baby and the placenta as existing within the same auric field

yeah uh idk if this is wiki nonsense but i detect a whiff of total bullshit

oh sorry, that's just the rotting placenta

elmo, namaste

what is an auric field

somehow I don't think it's a big sphere of gold

x-post lol u jerk

(I was a formula baby (and have the chronically fucked up ears to prove it!) too)

obviously instead of the mother holding on to the soul that was in the placenta by eating it, they are giving the soul time to naturally transfer to the baby

it makes perfect logical sense, just ask contenderizer

Wait you mean that it's a fake wiki article? No. It's definitely a thing.

http://www.lotusbirthcampaign.org/

http://www.achildbirth.com/lotus-birth.html

I really wish I could find the pictures where the lady documented it with her placenta bag and stuff. Dammit.

tbh nothing is going to top the placenta teddy bear posted upthread

no no, i mean i'm not relying on a wiki article to speak for all proponents of lotus birthing, who knows who wrote that sentence

placenta bear

afterbear

Ah, right. I defintely dind't mean to do that if it seemed like I had.

I think elmo is incredulous that people are referring to auras and stuff as a reason to do this and that someone perhaps added that to the wiki article as a joke

I'm usually pretty pro-cuddlestein ILX, but if you're going to eat your baby's placenta, you're going to face some derision from your friends on the internet. That's just the way things go.

If you are going to carry the placenta around with you until it rots off your baby, step up so I can deride you directly for your choices.

lol 'afterbear' hahaha

<3 carl

c, you did a straight up "Well, A then B, and B then C, so it stands to reason that since A then C"

I'm not going to spend all day shaking my head and going back and forth. I get where you're coming from in that anecdotal ideas etc but sheesh watch it on the basic logic problems.

― mh, Tuesday, April 3, 2012 6:38 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i've read through everything i posted itt, and this is just horseshit, no offense. my logic was all A-dependent (A being that most mammals eat the placenta). to the extent that anything was B-dependent, i wasn't making any kind of insistent A-then-C connection. if there's a point you want to argue, do so. insults and nonspecific claims of logical fallacy are no argument at all.

or you could both just let it go, I have no idea what you're even talking about anymore jeez guys

xp yeah it's the aura thing specifically, auras are a nice thing to think about and contemplate but when you get into the pseudoscience of 'auric energy transfers' via the umbilicus it just seems so warped and delusional

What I was thinking when I wrote what I did was:

- There may be special nutritional or medicinal value to be gained from human placentaphagy but there is no proof of it
- Some people value the placenta's symbolism b/c it is part of an emotional experience, so they eat it, and that is UNUSUAL (i.e. "WTF") BUT FINE
- But to claim health benefits when science doesn't support such claims = woo

xp - lol, OTM x2

I'm usually pretty pro-cuddlestein ILX, but if you're going to eat your baby's placenta, you're going to face some derision from your friends on the internet. That's just the way things go.

If you are going to carry the placenta around with you until it rots off your baby, step up so I can deride you directly for your choices.

Awesome to find out that this is the thing that turns people into straight up assholes on ILX. Who knew?

Someone pissed in their placentas..?

I knew, but then again, I would have known.

I think this has been a notably gentle thread for involving some pretty oddball behaviors bolstered by specious reasoning.

I'd also deride those who buy into auric energy transfers, while we're deriding things.

or you could both just let it go, I have no idea what you're even talking about anymore jeez guys

― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, April 3, 2012 11:54 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

mh has been sniping at me for a while itt. i was nice abt it for a while, but now i'm starting to get pissed off. grumble grouse mutter...

you guys should sit down, break placenta, and talk it out

most mammals eat placenta -> it must have nutritional content or some benefit -> humans could get nutritional content or benefit from placenta?

idk, I'm dropping it

argument from (possibly) false premise
modus ponens
etc

you pick that placenta back up, young man

this is not a barn

NB I very very seriously looked into becoming a midwife and it's not something I have entirely ruled out doing in the future. Natural midwife-assisted childbirth is something I've very interested for a variety of reasons. I do not necessarily plan to ever eat or cart around a placenta in my lifetime. However, these are both things sometimes practiced by people seeking alternative birth experiences rather than hospital-based fully medicalized childbirths** which is something I wholeheartedly support. As such, I feel that it's sort of important to keep an open mind (or at least not be a total jerk about) about related things that I might not fully understand especially when I'm reasonably certain that at least one ILXOR reading this has made similar choices and migh be hurt by some unnecessarily harsh and uninformed words.

** Which are not necessarily always negative things, obv.

11111111000000000011111111122226

I have a friend who worked with a midwife in NYC for quite a while! I should drop her a note asking about this, or bring it up when she's in town.

sorry my cat decide to post

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA - I was like, what the?!

And yes, this is one of those hot button issues for me becuase of the countless times I've heard really poorly informed people go off and freak out about things just because someone suggests doing them in a way that goes against the grain. I wasn't calling anyone in particular as asshole btw. It can just be really frustrating at times.

lol jacob I was going to ask if u were having a stroke

Haha. I wondered if that was a response to "at least one," where JS was suggesting that the real number was 11111101002202566 ILXors.

might be hurt by some unnecessarily harsh and uninformed words.

E, I don't think anyone here has said any of this shouldn't be done, only that it fires against our own sensibilities. That applies to a lot of aesthetic, political, or religious ideas that many people have and it's not really something to take personally -- I would think doing something like eating a placenta or carrying it around is part of a larger life sensibility and people disliking that doesn't mean they dislike the person.

I do stuff people consider dumb every day. I'm willing to hear why those things are dumb, but if they don't hurt other people and I still think it's ok, then it's ok.

btw acting like we're less informed just because we haven't done something is... misguided

If you're going to eat the placenta, I think you should eat it before birth. Like eating grapes straight from the vine.

I see on xp that you're not calling out anybody in particular, but: My comments about placentophagia are not uninformed. I am well informed about the lack of scientific support for any health benefits. If somebody wants to eat it for spiritual reasons (or bury it under a tree, which is actually kind of sweet), or decides that since there's studies showing that it's bad to eat placenta, then more placenta to them.

I'm also comfortable challenging people's decisions not to vaccinate their children even though that might go against the beliefs of some ILX parents.

WAIT:

or decides that since there's NO studies showing that it's bad to eat placenta THEY MIGHT AS WELL EAT IT

morelike midwtfery

Part of me thinks that the ilxor who is making/has made that decision already knows that a healthy and reasonable discussion would absolutely take place on the parenting board, and while ILXors are super cool as a rule it's just a lot to expect of the general population to not either have some lols or have some grossed out reactions

I think we all know how we *should* behave, and that we should be able to talk about it like grownups...I'd like to but my inner 5 year old sometimes takes over... but no-one's really being too crazy dickish here and I think overall we're doing okay, right?

but I totally get E, that you're bringing a lot with you into this discussion, and I'm glad that we know a little more now about where you stand

not that anyone should have to explain themselves, but for me being really new to this stuff it helps me understand it better instead of being a 5 year old "EWWWW GROSS "

It was just the tone, MH. I said myself I couldn't imagine sitting with around wtih a bowl full of placenta for days. I guess they were meant to be jokey but some posts came off to me as really jerky instead and I thought for a minute how if I'd made similar decisions I'd probably be really angry at people for being so mean about stuff they probably know very little about. Maybe I overreacted because, as I mentioned earlier, I have a vested interest in related topics. I don't know.

most mammals eat placenta -> it must have nutritional content or some benefit -> humans could get nutritional content or benefit from placenta?

yeah, the question mark is key, imo. given the first two (and there's evidence that the placenta does provides nutritional value and perhaps even some unique benefits to the animals that eat it), the question becomes "why wouldn't you eat the placenta?" i'm not saying, "you should do it, period." i'm asking, "what's the argument against?"

idk, i'm dropping it...

like, i think the only arguments i've ever heard are that "it's gross" or "it isn't normal", neither of which is particularly convincing.

Also, if it makes you feel any better ENBB, I have pretty strong opinions about a lot of things done in the name of "natural childbirth" and I don't share them because parenting threads where people are talking about their childbirth choices is not the place to do that. BUT if somebody started a thread linking to an article about a new trend in having babies in the woods alone with no assistance at all (I'm making that up in an attempt to give an example that is not going to hurt anybody's feelings, so if that's a real thing somebody wants to do, I'm sorry) and the article and the thread took a slightly mocking tone, I would assume, as here, that the thread was an okay place to share my opinions.

I said myself I couldn't imagine sitting with around wtih a bowl full of placenta for days

that shit wouldn't last 5 minutes in most houses; it's like Lays chips in human organ form

once you placenta you can't stop

Honest to god craving 7-layer dip due to that post
xp

Or perhaps a Doritos taco from Taco Bell.

see now there's a way to eat placenta

7-layer dip! now we're talking

J, if there were studies showing it were harmful then I'd agree with you. I am generally all for evidence-based health practices and outright reject things without hard science behind them. However, I think there's a high probability that the lack of studies on the topic are related to the poor way in which women's health related issues have been handled and been given the shaft historically (nevermind non-traditional women's health practices) and that's not OK. For that reason alone, and until there is scientific evidence to the contrary, I'm willing to support a woman's choice to chow down on as much of her homemade placenta as she damn well pleases without condeming that choice.

lol I don't know about in the woods but there's definitely a whole unassisted childbirth movement which, yes, is a wholle other topic and something I don't understand either.

this lotus thing seems bad in that banking stem cells from the umbilical cord is known to be a good thing and you lose that possibility, other than that, feel free to run around with whatever stuff attached to you that you want

But I'm not going to come over and see the baby until that thing detaches and you air out the house.

"homemade placenta" somehow manages to be the most sinister phrase on this thread

I would imagine etsy has something to say about that

I prefer takeout placenta tbqh

BTW, my mom's first comment when I explained this article and that it involved placenta dried and ground up and put in capsules was, "That sounds expensive!"

otm, mom. otm.

Oh, and just so it's clear and nobody assumes I think otherwise, people who don't vaccinate their kids make me irrationally angry. I don't even read that thread anymore because I can't handle it.

fwiw, I am pro-breastfeeding, think circumcision is unnecessary in the western world unless for a legitimate medical need or religious prescription but not all that harmful, and there are too many unnecessary c-sections

Well you are correct in all those beliefs. Imo, of course.

I don't think any of those things are really that controversial anymore though I guess most Americans still choose to circumsize boy babies? Be interesting to know what rates for that are now, actually.

fwiw I wouldn't criticize anyone for doing the opposite on any of those, though. there are just some issues where both sides fall well within norms. people do get up in arms about all of these!`

I wouldn't criticize anyone for doing the opposite of them either in most situations.

I was kind of taken aback last year when I visited my friends in the hospital with their newborn and they said something to the effect of "Yeah, I kind of wish they'd advised me to walk around a while or squat more before advising me to get a c-section, in retrospect, but on the other hand he's a really big baby"

Yeah well, sounds pretty typical tbh.

and at six months, he's 20 pounds and 28" long

hell of a placenta

guys i totally understand on some level that birth is a huge spiritual event and there is a deep inherited human response to that, and to treat the birth and afterbirth as magical events. plus there's blood! blood magic is strong magic. from that level placentaphagy and lotus birthing are comprehensible -- as is the recent practice of banking umbilical blood for its magical medical properties. precious, precious is the blood!

but otoh! there is also a v understandable human sense of uneasiness with all that blood and flesh and gore and a weird sense of taboo around. i personally look on the miracle of childbirth as a crazy horrorshow and that definitely informs my response to the stuff ppl are doing with placentae. thank god midwives exist and are happy to aid and revel in its visceral mysteries, because i could. not. handle it.

I'm about to be in the middle of this, because I am assisting the midwife in delivering our baby, which at first seemed crazy to be because I have no training or knowledge of childbirth at all. But the midwife assured us that in the event of something going wrong or something that I can't handle that she and her assistant will be their the handle anything and a hospital is 5 minutes away. We were told the baby will be coming in probably 10 days so I'll see just how strong I am to help bring the baby into the whole. Weirdly enough, I'm not freaked out or nervous at all. I do understand why people see the placenta as being more than merely afterbirth, I do, but most important to me is our baby. I just don't want to dispose of the placenta in a trash can and treat it as if it's waste. I'd rather be a little symbolic about it and have something else be born from it, like a tree.

I can totally see that, sounds pretty cool.

Is it even legal to throw in a garbage can, or does it count as medical material and have to be taken somewhere?

I like the idea of a tree. Rose bush would be good, they go NUTSO with a bit of good compost.

If i get pregnant I'm going to throw my placenta on the ice after a Blackhawks game.

I'm not sure anyone would notice tbh

I would so buy a ticket for that

I regret eating your placenta.

Toews would dive for it and gobble it up. Or put it in the Stanley Cup for later.

Lotus birth is fine by me if you carry the placenta around in the Stanley Cup.

lol

or drive it around with you in a Lotus

God hates placentaphags!

Winner.

don't get stuck holding the placentabag

btw guys wharton's jelly sounds delicious... placenta butter and wharton's jelly sandwich... mmm

In case anyone wants to check out some stories/pics. They're definitely interesting.

http://www.naturalfamilyco.com/graphics/LotusBirthGallery.pdf
http://eleanorsuc.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/her-lotus-birth.html

I wouldn't circumsize anyone for doing the opposite of them either in most situations.
― wolf kabob (ENBB), Tuesday, 3 April 2012 19:55 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

was what i read

Animals also eat the placenta because leaving a big plop of raw meat lying around is a great way to attract predators when you have vulnerable newborns. Unless there's a pack of dingoes in your maternity ward, this does not really apply to humans.

there could be foodies around who are after some raw food

just dipping into this surprisingly long-lasting thread i can only say that Jeff is otm

if you're hungry, eat it, i say.
there are people dying of starvation in africa and you guys are throwing out your placentas as if it's medical waste. shame on you

do they know it's christmas?

maybe if you dry it out and wrap it up in cheesecloth you can stealth it in as christmas pudding the following year

The lotus birth thing seems so complicated and high maintenance.

making sure it doesn't stink is pretty much your main priority for the next, what, twelve days?

I haven't read this thread at all, but several CHILXors (me, n/a, J5ss5, and courtnoodle) won a pub quiz tonight with this thread title as our team name.

!!!!!

hooray!

It has brought fortune to us all.

waht is a courtnoodle

placenta: the gift that keeps on giving

courtnoodle is a lovely chicagoan and mostly-lurker on ilx

hahaha that is awesome

uh just to clarify I am talking about the pub quiz team name, not the lotus birth pics I just looked at which honestly gave me flashbacks to "Alien"

Something you can do with the placenta is take the placental and umbilical cord blood and tissue from a newborn baby and place it in cryo storage so if the baby gets a blood or immune disease sometime in the future they can use the stem cells to beat it. Another thing you can do with the placenta is eat it. Potato, Pahtaho.

another thing you can do with the placenta is wear it like a jaunty hat

loollllll

I Regret Wearing My Placenta Like a Jaunty Hat

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTa8YUM1SpQI3uAixmDMbMFbN03gLsesC6CbGxxCFptyimAk23EBctN3V1w3A

moi, je ne regrette rien (excepté manger mon placenta)

fuck washing a placenta hat

LOL

http://jezebel.com/5898245/so-you-want-to-eat-your-placenta

the entire "Raw: Nice and Bloody" section is amazing

You can also eat raw placenta, usually in smoothie form

you're not supposed to eat raw placenta if meconium (poop!) was in the amniotic fluid

Yeah, only eat it if it's completely filtered any extant poop.

I Regret Pooping On My Placenta

don't we all

Nah, I've never given pooping on dayo's placenta a second thought

If it's magenta, you've been eating placenta.
If it's black, send it back.

geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225) Posted: June 8, 2005 7:48:53 AM

omg lol

where did that come from

"If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down." - The Lost Stanzas

If fluid has poopy you'll get pukey
If fluid has none get ready for yum

http://i2.listal.com/image/1379602/500full.jpg

"I think I'll have the $5 placenta."

"You want that bloody as hell or burnt to a crisp?"

I am at an Easter vigil and starving, really wouldn't say no to a piece of placenta right now

I knew we talked about lotus birth somewhere on here.

http://www.xojane.com/healthy/how-to-lotus-birth

As someone whose child would die and who might also die right along with the child if I decided to let nature take its course w/r/t this pregnancy, I have a whole new perspective on this, which is basically, go ahead and give birth alone in a pile of leaves if you want but don't preach about how it's the only way to raise a healthy and happy child.

preach it

ah, the single-sentence paragraph "let me explain", so beloved of shitty writers and holders of opinions

ulysses

we woke up one morning to find our baby Ulysses had gripped hold of the cord and detached it by himself, leaving a neat and healthy-looking belly button.

lol xp

sometimes I wonder if all these "natural birth" evangelists have any concept whatsoever of the history of infant and maternal mortality rates during childbirth

she looks like janice litman goralnik

I was researching what ails my pregnancy on the internet the other day and came across a midwife message board in which one midwife was questioning whether she should recommend that all of her patients undergo ultrasounds (which is how this complication is diagnosed) because she had a client who had been diagnosed with said complication, and if she hadn't had the ultrasound but had proceeded to labor, consequences would have been dire indeed. Anyway, there was a lot of back and forth and finally one poster went on at length about how the important thing is for women to trust themselves and to trust nature and not to rely on the medical establishment or technology, and that she would never recommend ultrasounds, or even talk to her clients about them, because this undermines our own innate wisdom and any deaths that resulted were a small price to pay for reconnected with our intuition. The original poster decided not to let fear guide her decisions and to continue to tell her clients about ultrasounds but not to recommend that they get them.

I don't know what happened after that because I got so angry I blacked out.

comments are lol

That child has the look of someone who successfully conned two grown humans into bending to his will BEFORE HE EVEN LEFT THE WOMB.

He's either the next Einstein or the next Mussolini. LOOK INTO HIS EYES.

ultrasounds are totally harmless! they're not like amniocentesis for god's sake

Like, these bozos would rather my child (and also possibly me) die than take advantage of modern technology because ~~intuition~~.

Baaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrffffffffffffffffffffff

sometimes I wonder if all these "natural birth" evangelists have any concept whatsoever of the history of infant and maternal mortality rates during childbirth

― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, October 24, 2013 4:52 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did they teach that in the undergraduate arts curriculum they dropped out of?

In the 1850s, the infant mortality rate in the United States was estimated at 216.8 per 1,000 babies born for whites and 340.0 per 1,000 for African Americans, but rates have significantly declined in the West in modern times. This declining rate has been mainly due to modern improvements in basic health care, technology, and medical advances. In the last three decades, infant mortality overall has also decreased considerably. In the last century, the infant mortality rate has decreased by 93%. Overall, the rates have decreased drastically from 20 deaths in 1970 to 6.9 deaths in 2003 (per every 1000 live births).

sorry, I was scanning through the beginning of this thread and noticed this:

If i get pregnant I'm going to throw my placenta on the ice after a Blackhawks game.

― Jeff, Tuesday, April 3, 2012 5:18 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, I forgot saying that. Carl, we need to save the placenta for 2 days to make it to the first home game after the birth.

LOL

Since the stupid placenta is part of the problem, we can throw it onto Lake Shore Drive and watch the cars grind it into the asphalt for all I care.

I guess the "jaunty hat" is out, then

The author of that article has a blog: http://mamanaturally.wordpress.com/

Oh this is fun.

To save money while eating "healthy":

Tip 4: Forage wild food for free; go to your local woods, park or even your neighbour’s front gardens where you will be surprised at how much is growing, even in the city.

aka steal food from your neighbors. Cheap! Also apparently serve turds on a plate: http://mamanaturally.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/img_0649.jpg

Ha ha what is that supposed to be?

lol omg what is that? date bars? never put them into turd form!

turds stolen from neighbors, presumably

placenta bars obv

Below I have taken a selection of common childhood imbalances from Louise L. Hay’s book ‘You can heal your life’ and given their mental invitations/thoughts that have manifested the illness.

Try not to discredit or take this information too personally; as the buddhists teachings go, we all come here with our own karmas and the only certainty in life is that all humans will endure suffering at some level.

Accidents – Inability to speak up for the self. Rebellion against authority. Belief in violence.
Aches – Longing for love/to be held.
Allergies – Denying own power.
Anemia – Lack of joy. Fear of life. Feeling not good enough.
Adenoids – Family friction. Arguments. Child feeling unwelcome or in the way.
Anxiety – Not trusting the flow and process of life.
Asthma – Smother love. inability to breathe for oneself. Suppressed crying.
Baby asthma – Fear of life. Not wanting to be here.
Bedwetting – Fear of parent, often the father.
Childhood diseases – Childish behaviour in the adults around them.
Colds – Too much going on at once. Mental confusion.
Colic – Mental irritation. Impatience. Annoyance in the surroundings.
Pink eye – Anger and frustration. Not wanting to see.
Eye problems – Not wanting to see what is going on in the family.
Earache – Anger. Not wanting to hear. Too much turmoil. Parents arguing.
Eczema – Breath-taking antagoism. Mental eruptions.
Fevers – Anger. Burning-up.
Overweight – Represents protection. Oversensitivity.
Hay fever – Emotional congestion. Guilt. A belief in persecution. A fear of the calendar.
Headaches – Invalidating the self. Self-criticism. Fear.
Infection – Irritation. Anger. Annoyance.
Inflammation – Fear. Seeing red. Inflamed thinking.
Influenza (Flu) – Response to mass negativity and beliefs. Fear
Jaundice – Internal and external prejudice. Unbalanced reason.
Motion sickness – Fear of not being in control.
Nail bitting – Frustration. Eating away at the self. Spite of a parent.
Nose bleeds – A need for recognition. Feeling unwanted and unrecognised. Crying for love.
Stuttering – Insecurity. Lack of self-expression. Not being allowed to cry.

"Sorry, your baby has asthma, I guess it just doesn't want to be here because it's afraid of life?"

pls map illnesses to reasons for admission
http://images.dangerousminds.net/uploads/images/inasnejgjgjgjjgjhg.jpg

Eye problems – Not wanting to see what is going on in the family.

this is like some stone age/sympathetic magic level shit

I don't want to even address that shit seriously but even if you believed in it couldn't you see how simplistic it is? Fevers are the manifestation of anger, because they both involve "burning up." Come on. Use your imagination at least.

Accidents = pee/poop accidents or all accidents?

Babies give themselves asthma by being scared little babies. COWBOY UP LITTLE BABIES if you want to breathe! xp

Well "bedwetting" is separate so I guess just like any accident?
xpost

I also like how "childhood diseases" is somehow separate from the rest of these, including colic.

In summary, Louise L. Hay did not work very hard on that list.

Childhood diseases – Childish behaviour in the adults around them.

she should think long and hard about this one

cowboy up, ulysses

A word in defence here of that beautiful ball of fire in the sky we call the sun; the burning star that gives life to everything on planet Earth and, without which, we would not exist.

The sun has such great healing powers that it actually purges anything out of the human body that should not be there, not create a state of disease crisis but sometimes creates a healing crisis in the form of the big C word.

Tabacco and masturbation!

"Your dick smells like smoke!?"

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

"in the form of the big C word."

That was particularly confusing to me because I am a foul mouthed harridan and thought she was referring to "cunt."

you're not dying you just have a healing crisis

maybe the sun is so hot because it's angry all the time. chill out, sun!

I regret starting 'I Regret Eating My Placenta'

lol no I don't, this tangent is amazing

Wait, is the daddy in that xojane article Ethan Hawke?

considering they're vegan, it's more likely to be methane hawke tbh

http://www.today.com/parents/umbilical-cord-burning-modern-moms-embrace-ancient-practice-1D80023427

I feel like, even though I'd probably eat placenta pills if I ever give birth, the only proper response to all of this is

https://41.media.tumblr.com/22b09e0817c4cc60236c4d002fea0e9c/tumblr_nl0murJH6o1r73e4ko1_540.png

(I almost just C&P'd that jpeg link into an email to super important high level rich people and oh god am I glad i caught that)

"it’s a way to cherish the moment and get loved ones involved in the milestone for baby and mom."

There are a lot of ways to do this that don't involve an open flame around your newborn but at least nobody is claiming any medical benefits of cord burning. It's just ceremonial and I can't get mad at that, even if I might roll my eyes a lil bit.

No I totally agree. I just find it kind of fascinating that people keep trying to come up with still more things to do with the freaking umbilical cords.

(btw I know there are no proven medical benefits to eating placenta but there are also no harmful effects and if it might do something good I can understand wanting to encapsulate it plus it just seems like it would be kinda bad ass)

I just find it kind of fascinating that people keep trying to come up with still more things to do with the freaking umbilical cords.

LOL yeah. Bolo ties? (brb opening Etsy store)

Just make sure you know what else (if anything) is going in the capsules! Nothing but 100% pure placenta for you, missy.

As far as what white nonsense it is, given this "Cord burning, a practice that’s been around in various cultures for many years," I'm going to guess "cultural appropriation." I can't find anything about the actual origins of cord burning, but I read a really good piece about baby wearing and cultural appropriation that I think would probably be applicable here. None of which is to say that white women should burn the cord or wear their babies (I'm a fan of the latter personally) but just to do it in a way that respects, rather than coopts or minimizes, the origins of the practices.

Here it is! http://the-toast.net/2014/11/17/cultural-appropriation-birthing-community/

None of which is to say that white women SHOULDN'T burn the cord, I meant to say.

Parents of color often talk about how we are met with two common reactions when we do things that we have reclaimed as part of connecting with our own cultures. Either people tell us that we are “backwards” and that these things are “primitive,” they tell us that there is science (because what our ancestors did obviously was not based in any science) and new theory, etc. Or they exoticize us and our cultural practices wanting to hear all about it and, if we are open to sharing, they suddenly become “experts” on the subject and we shortly thereafter find them teaching or writing obnoxious articles such as the one linked here. Much like many other “natural parenting” methods that have become popular again in white cultures, there is little introspection of how colonization has tried desperately to break families of color from breastfeeding, babywearing, and other traditional healing methods. Midwives and doulas have become associated with a degree of privilege, often completely inaccessible to the most marginalized communities who would actually benefit the most from such access. Home birth is taken for granted as something that a white family can choose, but families of color for whom it was a family norm in the past are now forced to accept invasive medical procedures under threat of having their children removed from the home with charges of medical neglect.

I have pretty strong opinions about home birth being a generally bad idea, but this paragraph is spot on, IMO.

eating your placenta is basically the adult version of eating your boogers

tbh i felt a lot of sadness when the umbilical cord stump of my first son fell off, it meant he was really no longer a newborn and that brief phase was done. i don't know why i felt so emotional about it, i didn't want to get rid of it. the dried stump sat on top of his dresser for a months, we even talked about burying it. i'm well aware that this makes sound pretty loony and tbh i probably am, i have no explanation for the attachment i had to this little dried piece of tissue. eventually it became dusty and gross and we just threw it out. when our second son was born and his umbilical cord stump fell off, i felt nothing towards it and immediately said "fuck this the stump is going in the trash"

I was just being funny with the picture because that quote/character are hilarious. I didn't really mean white nonsense literally more like privileged nonsense because the whole birth/afterbirth plan thing is really sort of just that that to begin with which is not to say that I don't understand the desire to make or have one. And yes I'm sure it is cultural appropriation of some sort though you're right that nothing specific turns up. Gonna read that toast article. I was actually just talking about baby wearing and how it's how people have done it for ages recently. I want to wear all the babies if I ever do have any.

x-post - I was reading something earlier about people planting umbilical cords with trees to grow alongside their kids and my exact thought was that seems like something you'd do with your first kid but not any after that.

not you specifically, of course

Ivy's cord fell off when she was in the NICU. I wasn't there when it happened. I wasn't involved in any of the cord care. I just came in one day and there was this weird little dried up thing sitting next to her bassinet. I didn't even figure out it was her cord for a couple of hours. I feel deeply sad about all of the time Ivy spent in the NICU but I feel particularly sad about that. So I get the urge behind a lot of this stuff.

At this point, it's also hard to avoid an emotional kneejerk negative reaction about a lot of this stuff because even though I would not have burned the cord or eaten my placenta or given birth in my tub, I also didn't have the choice. I didn't get to listen to music or hold my baby until 12 hours or so after she was born. So part of me mourns not having the choicedespite my anti-woo stance in general, which is why that quoted paragraph makes so much sense to me. And then I also get righteously angry at any suggestion that not embracing the whole passel of natural childbirth woo is somehow harmful. Cutting the cord before it stopped pulsing was nowhere near as harmful as not getting Ivy supplemental oxygen in the moments after she was born, you know?

all of that makes a ton of sense to me carl

I don't know if baby wearing was important for Ivy, but it was super key for me. Ivy seemed fine just snoozing in her bassinet but I desperately needed to cuddle her as much as possible. I'm a pretty cuddly person in general and given the circumstances of her birth, I really felt like I missed out on something super important in those first weeks. That's a huge reason why I am pretty casual about co-sleeping. I feel like I shouldn't encourage it, but I really like it. She just snuggles right up to me and it's like oxytocin city.

Baby wearing is also ultra convenient. Highly recommend it.

Yes CA, absolutely. I know several women who had elaborate birth plans and opinions and ideas of what their all natural births were going to look like who ended up having necessary medical intervention and were then really upset because I honestly think they hadn't even considered that that might happen.

I hadn't yet read the paragraph you quoted when I was talking about privilege but yes that is absolutely 100% spot on.

Thanks, guys. Validation is good!

for both our boys we put in a ton of work planning a natural childbirth (not a home birth though) and each time things did not go as planned in any way, we had to way more interventions than we anticipated and both boys were born cesarean. we did everything we could to make it happen each time but it just didn't work out for us. we generally feel a lot of resentment towards the natural birth movement, and while we understand and support so many of its principles, there is definitely a vibe that if you don't birth naturally, use various interventions, or have a cesarean birth, then your birth was a failure. the number of times we were told by natural birth devotees that labor/birth is not painful and can even be "orgasmic" (fuuuck that, really?) while my wife had one excruciatingly painful 40-hour labor and another excruciatingly painful 25-hour labor just makes us very angry.

not angry in the sense that we were entitled to a natural birth, more angry in the frequent misrepresentations that the natural birth movement gives. again, i support SO much of what the natural birth movement does, it is deeply needed but at the same time many of its adherents are not willing to admit that labor and birth varies so widely across women and often medical interventions are a wonderful thing.

we would have been FUCKED if we tried to do a homebirth yet it was still encouraged by many people we talked to

and by "natural birth movement" i mean the american natural birth movement that we've experienced mostly on the east coast of the US just to be clear

So much OTM. I mean, just in this thread I talked about a post on a midwifery message board where a midwife said that it ultrasounds were bad, even if they diagnosed complications that would be fatal without intervention (like the one I had!), because the death of a baby is less important than women connecting with their intuition. What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck?

Also you know what really fucking sucks? C-sections. THEY SUCK. I don't want to scare anybody and they are a wonderful, amazing, life saving procedure that I am extremely grateful for but holy shit they aren't FUN and it took me about a year to stop having PTSD-like reactions about mine, and other than the resident anesthesiologist bobbling my epidural the first time, my c-section was pretty routine. It was just very, very unpleasant. Also nobody told me that uncontrollable shaking was a common reaction to an epidural so I literally thought I was dying. So the idea that individual mothers are getting c-sections because they are easy or whatever just makes me furious.

So the idea that individual mothers are getting c-sections because they are easy or whatever just makes me furious.

totally! recovery *at best* is like a 2-month deal, our baby was born 6 weeks ago and my wife is just now able to lift and hold our 28-lb toddler and it still hurts her

I am sending major empathy vibes to your wife rn.

"orgasmic" (fuuuck that, really?)

There is a video on youtube that claims to be a lady O-ing during birth and it's just . . . no fucking way.

I support whatever anyone wants to do but I also know that I'm a total wuss when it comes to pain and would probably be 20 mins in and begging for all the drugs available to me. I do think midwifes are awesome that birth is sometimes medicalized necessarily for routine pregnancies and for that reason I like the idea of midwife-led birthing centers within hospitals where the mother also has immediate access to doctors and interventions etc. Also I stress routine. Anyone that thinks all ultrasounds are dangerous can get fucked.

A Santa Cruz, California, family -- who asked not to be identified for privacy reasons but still allowed their faces to be put on a website associated with a a national news agency -- takes part in a cord burning ceremony.

zing

They put their kids in matching pajamas so they would be harder to dox individually.

Also as an adoptive parent, I'd like to take every natural childbirth/breastfeeding zealot in the country and set them on fire.

lol Santa Cruz of course

the health and safety of women I care about, or women in general, and their newborns, far and away outweighs any "authentic birth experience". If you have that and it works out, cool. But that's your trip- imposing that on other women is so shortsighted & kinda cruel..

Anyway it's ALL fuckin crazy amazing in the scheme of things, with or without hospitals so everone just stop being dicks lol

Carl: FYI it means the world that you and Ivy are here together. <3

love is the part everyone should aim for

now everyone throw their umbilical cords in the skillet, we're having a fry up

Oh god VG I don't know if it's because I was just being all sharing about a very emotional time in my life, but I just teared up at your post! In a god damn coffee shop!

Also as an adoptive parent, I'd like to take every natural childbirth/breastfeeding zealot in the country and set them on fire.

― DJP, Wednesday, May 13, 2015 4:51 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^

Formula is a fucking miracle and anybody who attempts to diminish that is a jerk.

now everyone throw their umbilical cords in the skillet, we're having a fry up

― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, May 13, 2015 12:55 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

looool

I am sending major empathy vibes to your wife rn.

― from batman to balloon dog (carl agatha), Wednesday, May 13, 2015 12:05 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thanks carl!

(hugs) carl

yr probably still emotional from eating the umbilical cord <3

This thread still has my favorite title ever. So happy when it pops up in my bookmarks.

I'm sad because we never threw the placenta on the ice at a Blackhawks game. xp

lool

https://twitter.com/KimKardashian/status/676488221396738048

haaaaaahahahahahahahhahahahahahaha

i knew i kept this bookmarked for a reason

thank u based ban

Also you know what really fucking sucks? C-sections. THEY SUCK. I don't want to scare anybody and they are a wonderful, amazing, life saving procedure that I am extremely grateful for but holy shit they aren't FUN and it took me about a year to stop having PTSD-like reactions about mine, and other than the resident anesthesiologist bobbling my epidural the first time, my c-section was pretty routine. It was just very, very unpleasant. Also nobody told me that uncontrollable shaking was a common reaction to an epidural so I literally thought I was dying. So the idea that individual mothers are getting c-sections because they are easy or whatever just makes me furious.

― from batman to balloon dog (carl agatha), Wednesday, May 13, 2015 10:59 AM (7 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Booming post. H had to have them both times, they are awful both as an experience and the recovery is worse. She went through months of agony about trying to avoid the second one if at all possible. And sprinkle on top of that some additional agony from the anxiety and guilt that the natural birth movement manages to instill about them!

yea my wife had two c-sections as well, it was pretty intense and recovery was very slow. it is one of a few factors in our decision not to have any more kids.

it's funny, we, like, birth was fucking traumatic for us, and there is such a counter-narrative in the natural birth movement about labor and birth being wonderful and spiritual and an oxytocin hormone free-flow and its pushed and promulgated as a corrective to the "birth is a medical event" mainstream hospital birth, and sure i can dig some of that, but myths about natural birth can be pretty damaging too. like for real either our babies or my wife or both would have died during labor if we did not give birth in a hospital and have access to doctors and mainstream medical procedures.

While there's no question many C-sections are medically necessary, overall Caesarian prevalence is largely a cultural thing.

http://www.scienceandsensibility.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/cesarean-rate-by-state-2013-1024x768.png

Will little difference in outcomes.

It could be worse:

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/CSections.png

charts! yay!

lol

this is one of my favorite thread titles of all time

yes

this along with http://ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=77&threadid=82925

woops didn't know it was a 77 thread sorry

I kinda regret eating my placenta but it's a relief to no longer be inside of it.

how was i ever so cranky about such a great topic

I, egret, eating my placenta

― GILFy Sigurdsson (DJ Mencap), Sunday, 1 April 2012 17:23 (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the photo disappeared but I found it again

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp3.eu-west-1.secondvariety.com/pilarcorrias/content/uploads/PC22244-1-1-1-940x1252.jpg

https://groundedparents.com/2016/01/20/please-dont-eat-your-placenta/

omg the googly eyes

http://www.businessinsider.com/eating-the-placenta-after-birth-could-spread-infection-to-babies-2017-7

a friend posted that on facebook causing another, more scientifically dubious, friend to comment that she ate hers and it was fine

the latter friend also left eggs on the counter because "they do it in europe" and after being told that they don't wash the outer layer off in europe, was like "well, I'm fine!"

really hope they were locally-sourced eggs, because she was pregnant at the time

I don't even have a refrigerator.

in europe we generally vaccinate against salmonella so don't need to refrigerate

(our placentas I mean)

I'm completely embarrassed as a once-upon-a-time microbiologist (virus not bacteria, fwiw) that I did not know about salmonella vaccination outside USofA!

As a backyard chicken owner who recently had to fight City Hall on a right-to-bear hens issue, I should have more salmonella knowledge. That said, with some authority I could assure ppl on city council that yeah chickens totally transmit salmonella, most especially the chickens cut up for you to purchase at Whole Foods, etc.

I am unawares of anti-placenta-eating legislation, but hell it probably exists.