I Ate My Own Placenta And Didn't Feel Any Different

After sailing through my first and second trimesters of my first pregnancy, I felt pretty in the dark about what it would actually be like to give birth. So my husband and I signed up for a pre-birth class run by a local doula. It was an intimate experience ― just four couples sitting in our instructor’s living room each week and eating snacks served on her dining room table. She was welcoming and reassuring. She also had a side business: placenta encapsulation. The placenta ― the organ that grows inside a pregnant woman’s uterus in order to nourish the baby ― can be dehydrated, ground up, and put into capsules that a woman can swallow after giving birth. Proponents say this can benefit milk production and help balance levels of hormones and iron, although little research has taken place to confirm these claims. This practice has become more mainstream in recent years. January Jones, Kim Kardashian and Alicia Silverstone are among the celebrities raving about how they felt after partaking in placenta encapsulation. You can find stories about the trend in People and Us Weekly, and even The New York Times and The Guardian have reported on it. But when I was pregnant about six years ago, it was pretty unchartered territory. All of us were a little taken aback at first, but the doula explained that our bodies would miss the extra boost in hormones and nutrients, particularly iron, after their abrupt removal during birth. This sounded convinci...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news