Eating the placenta after childbirth is a controversial practice. Does it really, as many mothers say, cocktails made from it increase the amount of milk produced, and capsules with powdered placenta add energy after childbirth? The fashion for eating placenta has been gaining popularity abroad for several years, but many doubts remain. Check the facts.

Eating the placentais also known as placentophagy, because that's how the phenomenon is professionally defined. In the United States, other celebrities, such as Kim Kardashian West, January Jones and Alicia Silverstone, are loudly talking about swallowing pills from their own powdered placenta. This phenomenon is also gaining popularity in Europe. In Great Britain in 2014, every eight couple took the placenta home in the hospital after giving birth.

Eating a placenta perfectly fit into the worldview of hippies, who at the turn of the 60s and 70s realized the slogan of living in harmony with nature in this way. Placentophagy has been known in Chinese natural medicine for 1,400 years. The Chinese sometimes used a powdered form of the placenta, not for women, but to treat male infertility and impotence.

Eating a placenta - opinion of supporters

Some parents believe that a placenta filled with hormones and antibodies protects against postpartum depression and restores strength. Among the supporters of eating the placenta, the benefits for the mental he alth of a newborn mother are emphasized, which would be confirmed by a study conducted a few years ago, during which the majority of participants admitted that eating the placenta had a positive effect on their well-being.

Another advantage of eating the placenta is to increase lactation. Women who decide to eat the placenta hope that thanks to the hormones from this tissue, they will not be at risk of postpartum depression, their vitality will improve and they will return to their pre-pregnancy form faster.

Some American midwives see nothing wrong with this type of practice. If it is doing nothing wrong to the mother and baby and it helps mom feel better, then you can allow it.

The placenta is about 1/6 of a child's size. One placenta can produce 100 to 200 pills.

Mark Kristal, a professor at the University of Buffalo specializing in behavioral psychology, is considered an expert in this field.The journal Ecology of Food and Nutrition has published an article by Dr. Kristal along with the results of his research, in which he proves that eating the placenta by animals improves the bond between female and offspring, is anesthetic and increases the chances of another pregnancy. Kristal has been carrying out this research for 40 years, but it concerns animals, it is not known what and if they can translate into humans.
In 2014, after giving birth to the hospital, she took home every eight British couple. There is the Independent Placenta Encapsulation Network association, which brings together over 100 experts from several countries (there is no one from Poland on the list) promoting knowledge about the beneficial properties of the placenta.

Almost all mammals eat the placenta. Most scientists, however, believe that their main goal is to "clean up" the birth marks for fear of predators.

The pharmaceutical industry was not indifferent to this phenomenon. People who are unable to swallow the placenta and would like to benefit from its supposed miraculous properties can take it in processed form. It takes several days to process the placenta into easy-to-swallow capsules on request.

For women, tablets and creams enriched with substances derived from this organ are available. You can find cookbooks that cover ways to store placenta, recipes for meals and smoothies, and finally ways to powder it and enclose it in vitamin-like capsules.

Bearing - what's included

There isn't much research available on the placenta. It is known to consist of connective tissue. It contains large amounts of iron and hormones: testosterone, oxytocin, progesterone and estrogens.

Nutritionists pay attention to the presence of harmful heavy metals in the placenta. After all, it acts as a protective barrier to stop pathogens and substances that are harmful to the fetus. It is also not fully known how the digestive system reacts to such an amount of hormones.

Eating a placenta - scientists' opinions

A study of 27 he althy pregnant women was conducted by medical anthropologist Dr. Sharon Young of the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. The report was published by the American magazine "Women and Birth". Women between 36 t.c. were examined in detail. and in the third week after childbirth (from questionnaires, saliva tests, blood tests, to the analysis of hormone levels). For 3 weeks after birth, some mothers took placenta pills and others took placebo.

It turned out that placenta pills had no significant effect on postpartum hormone levels, which could potentially be related to fatigue, mood or depressionpostpartum. The research showed a correlation between depression, baby blues, irritability and stress, and the level of fatigue, lack of sleep, and insufficient family support. However, this work was accused of the fact that tests were carried out on a too small sample of respondents.

According to some scientists, not only does eating your own placenta do little, it can even be risky for both mother and baby.

Similar research was published in the Archives of Women's Mental He alth. And according to researchers at Northwestern University, eating your own placenta not only gives little, and can even be risky for both mother and baby (if breastfed).

"The rise in placentophagy may be related to media coverage and the trend of alternative methods among a society that is currently chasing a he althier lifestyle," said Professor Crystal Clark, a psychiatrist, specialist in behavioral psychology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine . - There are also many doules in the US that promote eating the placenta after childbirth. Clark also points out that postpartum women experience stigmatization of their mental he alth, and that one in seven women does experience postnatal depression. Hence, seeking help elsewhere, and not treating depression with a specialist.

Eating placenta and recipes

There is no legal regulation in the United States regarding the dispensing, storage, or preparation of a placenta for consumption. In Poland, since 2001, regulations have not allowed hospital staff to provide parents with placenta, which is treated as hospital waste for disposal. The doctor must first check to see if it came out of the genital tract in full, and then discard it. - This is hospital waste that needs to be disposed of - explains Alina Kuźmina, spokeswoman for the Warsaw Clinical Hospital. Fr. Anna Mazowiecka.

Women giving birth at home have the opportunity to use the placenta the way they like. It happens that when women give birth at home, they bury the placenta in the ground. It is decided mainly by people after the so-called lotus births, however occasional in Poland. In such a delivery, the midwife or doula does not cut the umbilical cord, but waits for it to fall off spontaneously along with the placenta. This may take up to several days.

What is a bearing and what is it for

The placenta (Latinplacenta ) is a transitional fetal organ found in placental mammals that is formed from the chorion and the lining of the uterus. Chorionic villi go deeper and connect with the uterine membrane. The placenta is made up of the connective tissue, the endometrium (maternal part) and the outer layerthe cells surrounding the embryo. From the maternal side, the placenta consists of many lobules, and from the fetal side it is smooth.

With the help of the placenta, the embryo receives food and oxygen from the mother's blood, and gives back carbon dioxide and unnecessary metabolic products. The blood of the mother and the fetus do not mix, but nutrients can get into the blood of the fetus thanks to the placenta and umbilical cord, as well as some viruses, antibiotics, etc.

The human placenta usually has a circular shape. Her greatest mass is at the 42nd week of pregnancy - she weighs 650 grams.

The primary function of the placenta is the physiological exchange between the vascular systems of the mother and the fetus. In the 6th week of pregnancy, the fetal heart begins to beat and the network of the fetal vessels in the villi is already developed, allowing the fetal blood to flow through the placenta.

Beginning with the 10th week of pregnancy, the placenta, as an endocrine gland, gradually takes over the production of hormones, thus replacing the function of the gestational corpus luteum.

Produces chorionic gonadotropin, chorionic somatomammotropin, relaxin, testosterone, progesterone and estrogens: estrone, estradiol, estriol - produced in the placenta in the syncytiotrophoblast and estetrol - produced in the fetal liver. Due to the presence of enzymes in the placenta, steroid hormones are transformed.

The placenta is a natural immune barrier, thanks to which the mother's organism shows a selective tolerance to the fetal organism which is often antigenically foreign.

The placenta in humans is most often round (discoid), but there are also irregularly shaped placenta. The placenta is released in the third stage of labor.

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Pregnancy