Let's talk Placentophagy

Oh yeah, I'm goin' there.  If you're a bit faint of heart, maybe you should skip this post.

Placentophagy is the practice of eating the placenta after birth.  I KNOW, YOU'RE TOTALLY GROSSED OUT RIGHT NOW!

Everybody relax- most people don't eat it straight up like a grilled steak (though I'm sure it's been done).  Also, I'll bet many of you would be surprised to know that some pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, hair and skin preparations contain placental extract of animals- usually sheep.   True story.

I plan to have mine dehydrated and put it into capsules to take as a supplement.  There are really far worse things that one could take in capsule form, and at least I know what this is and where it came from :-)  Also, this way I don't have to get near the thing.  I can even look at raw meat, so I want nothing to do with the preparation.  I'll have a new baby to coo at, anyway :-)

So anyway, in theory there are lots of health benefits to ingesting your placenta including increased energy and milk supply and a much, much lower risk of post-partum depression.  (Also, see here, here, here and here.  Oh, and this, this, this, this, and this.)  Relatively speaking, my recovery period with Owen was pretty great but I did suffer from extreme fatigue which caused hallucinations (Kraig experienced this as well- hey, maybe he'll eat some placenta tabs!).  I had no issue with milk supply, but might donate to a local milk bank this time so the extra milk won't hurt.  I am anemic, especially during pregnancy, and the placenta is a great source of iron (duh) so that will certainly help.

Honestly, with a toddler + new baby + holidays I think I'll need all the energy I can get.

So, that's the plan.  I used to be weirded out by the idea, but you really get used to a lot of weird stuff during pregnancy/birth/raising a baby so the idea is really not all that strange to me now.  It's really worlds better than eating conventionally raised arsenic-laced chicken, right?  And don't even get me started on what's in hot dogs.  Woof.  So, this is not so weird in the grand scheme of things.

If you want a pretty hilarious take on it, read Joel Stein's article about his wife's placenta encapsulation.