Wall Street Journal Reports on Placenta Popularity

Posted by Cathy on

After nine months of gestation and then birthing a child, a women has every right to be exhausted.  What every new mother needs is a diet rich in nutrients and blood building foods to replenish her body.  The placenta is the secret that can return a woman’s vitality quickly.  

I’m happy to see the Wall Street Journal report on what seems incredulous, eating your placenta.   American hospitals have treated childbirth as practically a disease that needs medical intervention for decades. This growing phenomenon, of eating the placenta is as natural as childbirth and a welcome return to the wisdom of women.

A placenta holds a wealth of nutrients and should never be disregarded as medical waste.

Here’s the blogs I wrote on Eating Your Placenta, more than a year ago.   Enjoy!

Never quite sure what will inspire me to write a blog but seeing this video today did the trick.  This blog is about the human placenta and why women are now calling  “a placenta cooking lady” to prepare their placenta’s into pills to ingest after childbirth.   The placenta is attached to the fetus via the umbilical cord.  Once the baby is born the placenta and cord are considered medical waste (so we’re told) at the hospital.  We’ve known for some time the  umbilical cord  is a source of stem cell research and many wealthy parents now have the cord frozen and stored, a insurance policy of sorts for future medical needs.  Recently, in a return to ancient wisdom and in conjunction with science we are relearning about the tremendous nutritional value of the human placenta.  Chinese Medicine has understood this value for generations. Ingesting dried placenta in pill form can help a new mother recuperate from childbirth and reclaim some lost blood and nutrients.

 

You can have your placenta cooked, dried and placed into pills to supplement your child birth recovery.  Those that have used  placenta pills after birth swear they have a shorter recovery from postpartum hemorrhaging, more energy from replenished nutrients, increased milk production and no post-partum depression. In fact, a good friend of mine recently gave birth and she has just finished taking her placenta pills.  This was the first time she had placenta prepared into pills and she reported feeling energized and healthier than after her previous child births.  She said it was a little like a caffeine type energy boost without the caffeine and she had an extremely easy recovery overall.  This was her sixth child!

 

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, placenta is considered a powerful and sacred yang tonic. The placenta is cooked with a few herbs and wine.  Wine in Chinese medicine has a dispersing action and therefore helps to distribute the placentas nutrients throughout the women’s body.  The placenta is full of natural oxytocins which are responsible for contracting the uterus, it also contains  hormones which is believed to be the reason it helps with postpartum depression.  Historically Chinese Medicine has used human placenta for those who have low energy.  Interestingly, it is the only meat that comes from life, not death and other mammals do eat their placentas.  Maybe the animal kingdom has something to teach us.

Check out this link at Time Magazine, there is a short video showing the placenta being prepared,  in case you’ve never seen one.

Eating the Afterbirth – Placenta Is A Chinese Medicine Tradition

Posted by Cathy on with 26 Comments

cooking placentaThis blog, about the human placenta may sound “out there”, but more and more women are now calling “a placenta cooking lady” to prepare their placenta into pills to take after child birth. The placenta is attached to the fetus via the umbilical cord.  Once the baby is born the placenta and cord are considered medical waste (so we are told) at the hospital. We’ve known for some time the umbilical cord is a source of stem cell research and many wealthy parents now have the cord frozen and stored just in case it is needed in the future. 

Recently, this trend is gaining popularity in the West. However, its been widely known and accepted that the human placenta has tremendous value in the East. Chinese Medicine has used  human placenta as part of their materica medica for generations.  Ingesting your placenta can help a new mother recuperate from childbirth and rebuild lost blood and nutrients.

You can have your placenta cooked, dried and placed into pills to supplement your child birth recovery.  Those that have used placenta pills after birth swear they have a shorter recovery from postpartum hemorrhaging, more energy from replenished nutrients, increased milk production and no post-partum depression. In fact, a good friend of mine recently gave birth and she has just finished taking her placenta pills.  This was the first time she had placenta prepared into pills and she reported feeling great and said it was a little like a caffeine type energy boost without the caffeine.  She had an extremely easy recovery overall and this was her sixth child.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, placenta is considered a powerful and sacred yang tonic.  Traditionally, the placenta is cooked with herbs and wine.  Wine in Chinese medicine has a dispersing action and therefore helps to distribute the placentas nutrients throughout the women’s body.  The placenta is full of natural oxytocins which are responsible for contracting the uterus, it also contains  hormones which are believed to be the reason it helps with postpartum depression.  Historically Chinese Medicine has used human placenta for those who have low energy.  Interestingly, it is the only meat that comes from life, not death, and we are the only mammals that do eat their placentas.  Maybe the animal kingdom has something to teach us.