There are many tips, tricks and even recipes for preparing the placenta on the net. But doctors warn not to follow them. This is dangerous for your baby.
In the West, eating the afterbirth has long been practiced, believing that it brings incredible benefits to the mother and baby. For example, it enriches breast milk with useful microelements and relieves a young mother from depression. Even the stars admitted that they ate the placenta: Kim Kardashian, for example. And from ours – Sasha Zvereva, ex-soloist of the group “Demo”. She even recommended a placenta smoothie recipe. Until now, doctors have not objected – the brain has its own quirks under the hormones. But then something new came to light.
Recently, experts at the Wile Cornell Medical Center in New York summarized data from all studies on eating the placenta. They decided to do this because more and more obstetricians are faced with requests from mothers to give them the placenta literally to eat. And gynecologists do not know how to react to this: such a practice is harmful or useful.
“The patients explained that this is what their doulas advise, they say, in other cultures, the use of the placenta is considered the norm since ancient times. But we found only one culture in which eating the placenta is considered the norm. These are wealthy women in the United States, ”said the head of the study, obstetrician-gynecologist Amos Grunenbaum.
Patients preferred the placenta in different forms: raw, boiled, fried, dried, steamed or “packed” in capsules. The last option was the most preferable. Yet natural disgust plays a role.
“There is no evidence that this is really useful. In fact, eating the placenta can be dangerous for the mother. And we advise obstetricians with all their might to prevent giving placenta to women in labor, ”said Amos Grunenbaum.
The fact is that recently a shocking incident occurred in the United States: a mother infected her own child with streptococcus. The baby has developed sepsis. The study showed that the mother is healthy. But the capsules with dried placenta, which she took three times a day, had a streptococcal pathogen. In the same way, HIV or hepatitis virus could be in the place of streptococcus. Anything!
But fashion is such a thing that rarely heeds the arguments of reason. Therefore, doctors undertook to investigate the phenomenon of placentophagy – eating the placenta – in more detail.
“To prohibit or recommend something, you need to have scientifically proven data. And not to be guided by some ridiculous myths and beliefs, ”the experts are sure.
“Of course, the placenta contains a lot of hormones, vitamins, bioactive substances,” Roman Volya, an obstetrician-gynecologist from St. Petersburg, told Woman’s Day. – Therefore, the placenta is used in cosmetology, but not human, but animal. In our country, there is no practice of eating the placenta. After delivery, the afterbirth is sent for histological examination to check it for infections, and then burned. Although you can write a statement to take the placenta home. Get it on discharge. This is usually done for religious reasons. Say, everything that was in the mother belongs to her. But there can be no question of using the placenta for food, it is simply buried. “