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Is the placenta edible … and good for your health?
To believe the American stars, the consumption of placenta would be the best remedy to get back in shape after childbirth. They are more and more numerous to praise the nutritional virtues of this organ essential to the baby during his intrauterine life. The success is such that cookbooks have even sprung up to help mothers cook their placenta. In France, we are far, very far from this kind of practice. The placenta is destroyed immediately after birth along with the other operative remains. ” In theory, we do not have the right to return it to the parents, says Nadia Teillon, midwife in Givors (Rhône-Alpes). The placenta is made up of maternal blood, it can carry diseases. However, the legislation has changed: in 2011, the placenta was granted graft status. It is no longer considered as operational waste. It can be collected for therapeutic or scientific purposes if the woman who has given birth has not objected.
Eating your placenta, an ancient practice
Apart from dolphins and whales, humans are the only mammals that do not ingest their placenta after birth. ” Females eat their placenta so as not to leave traces of childbirth, explains Nadia Teillon. VSis a way for them to protect their babies from predators. While placentophagy is innate in animals, it was also practiced by many ancient civilizations in various forms. In the Middle Ages, women consumed all or part of their placenta to improve their fertility. In the same way, we attributed virtues to this organ to fight male impotence. But to have these magical effects, man had to ingest them without his knowledge. Often the procedure involved calcining the placenta and consuming the ashes with water. Among the Inuit, there is still a strong belief that the placenta is the matrix of maternal fertility. To be able to be pregnant again, a woman must necessarily eat her placenta after childbirth. Today, placentophagy is making a strong comeback in the United States and England and more timidly in France. The increase in natural and home births facilitates access to the placenta and to these new practices.
Better recovery after childbirth
Why eat his placenta? Although no scientific studies prove the benefits of ingesting the placenta, this organ is attributed many benefits for young women who have recently given birth. The nutrients it contains would allow a faster recovery of the mother and promote the flow of milk. Ingestion of the placenta would also facilitate the secretion of oxytocin which is the mothering hormone. Thus, young mothers would be less likely to develop postpartum depression. And the mother-child attachment would be strengthened. However, the renewed interest in the placenta is not convincing all professionals. For many specialists this practice is absurd and backward.
Capsules, granules … how to consume your placenta?
How can the placenta be eaten? ” I have a fantastic doula, which makes sure that I eat well, vitamins, tea and placenta capsules. Your placenta is dehydrated and turned into vitamins “, Explained the actress January Jones after the birth of her first child in 2012. There is obviously no question of eating her placenta raw when leaving the maternity hospital. In the United States, where placentophagy is authorized, mothers can ingest it in the form of homeopathic granules or capsules. In the first case, the placenta is diluted several times, then granules are impregnated with this dilution. In the second case, the placenta is crushed, dried, powdered and incorporated directly into pills. In both cases, it is laboratories that carry out these transformations after the mother sends a piece of the placenta.
The mother tincture of the placenta
More traditional, mother tincture is another way to treat the placenta. This artisanal process has especially developed in countries where placentophagy is prohibited.. In this case, the parents then have no choice but to make the mother tincture of the placenta themselves, using the many protocols that are freely available on the Internet. The process is as follows: the piece of placenta must be cut and diluted several times in a hydro-alcoholic solution. The recovered preparation no longer contains blood, but the active ingredients of the placenta have been retained. The mother tincture of placenta would facilitate, like the granules and capsules of this organ, the recovery of the mother, and would also have virtues in local application, for treat all kinds of infections in children (gastroenteritis, ear infections, classic childhood illnesses). On condition, however, that the mother tincture of the placenta is only used within the same siblings.