Alys-
Heya! I posted above about it.
Here it is again-
Articles on consuming Placenta-
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) experts claim the human placenta has been eaten by the Chinese for 2,500 years.
Dr Low Chai Ling, a medical director at the Sloane Clinic, says the Chinese believe it contains "qi"(Chinese for life force) and use it as a remedy for a whole range of problems such as lethargy, rejuvenating ageing skin and promoting breast milk production.
In Singapore, human placenta from China is readily available in a dried form from Chinese medical halls. Professor Xu Yi Jun, a physician from Ngee Ann TCM Centre, prescribes consuming 2g to 3g of powdered placenta daily to increase fertility and blood circulation and to make the body more resistant to disease.
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Dr Peter Chew, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Gleneagles Hospital, says that though people have been talking about "frying, drying and eating placentas" for years, his patients rarely ask to keep theirs.
He says: "Placentas are full of hormones, so theoretically, they should improve the complexion, even though there's no medical evidence to support this."
As for the possibility of dangerous side effects from consuming it, he says "there's no harm, seeing it's your own body's organ". But to be on the safe side, he recommends cooking the placenta before consumption.
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Debi French was dreading the birth of her fourth child. She wanted the baby, to be sure, but she was terrified of being visited again with the overwhelming despair that came over her in the days and weeks after her last delivery.
French's midwife offered her an unusual remedy: She suggested the expectant mother ingest her own placenta as a means of allaying postpartum depression. The temporary organ was saved, dried and emulsified, then placed in gelatin capsules and taken by the mother in the months after the birth in December 2004.
"Before I actually did it, my friends thought it was weird," says French, 29, of Spokane, Wash., whose fifth child is due in August. "But when they saw how fast I recovered from my birth and they knew my history, they thought it was pretty neat. Now I have a lot of friends planning to do it."
The practice, known as placentophagy, is far from widespread and is received with great skepticism by more traditional medical experts. But among a small but vocal contingent of expectant mothers and proponents, it is strongly believed that the organ created by the woman's body to pass nutrients between mother and fetus and is expelled after birth is rich in chemicals that can help mitigate fluctuations in hormones believed to cause postpartum depression.
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hose who advocate placentophagy, the eating of one’s placenta, in humans, mostly in modern America and Europe, Mexico, Hawaii, China, and the Pacific Islands believe that eating the placenta prevents postpartum depression and other pregnancy complications. The most general benefit of placentophagy, according to recent research, is that placenta and amniotic fluid contain a molecule (POEF, Placental Opioid-Enhancing Factor) that produces an enhancement of the natural reduction in pain that occurs shortly before and during childbirth.
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A testimony:
One of my MWs (MW- midwife) was telling me that she was a doula to a woman who had had to take some medication immediately post-partum. The medication was estrogen or somthing, and it had the foreseeable and immediate effect of causing her milk to completely dry-up, which the mother's obstetrician completely failed to mention to her before she took the medication.
Fortunately, the mother had saved her placenta. So, my MW cooked it for her, and the family ate it for dinner on Day 2 (after birth) with spaghetti noodles. I asked my MW...didn't they hesitate to eat it? She said that the mother knew that it was the only way to get her milk back in and fast. I said.. did it work? She said: Oh, yes. Very well.
Personally, I have difficulty imagining that I could eat my placenta raw because I have no experience with raw red meat, not even to prepare it for cooking. I do however eat cooked red meat... so I think that I could eat my placenta cooked (provided that someone were to cook it for me).
I had my most recent placenta encapsulated (see my post above)... I've been very fortunate to be able to take it. I'm now 3 months postpartum, and I have taken 2-3 capsules daily. This third post-partum period has been my best. I truly believe that the placenta capsules helped me.
See also-
http://placentabenefits.info/medicinal.asp
