Placentas are strange alien-looking pancake-shaped life-support organ for a fetus, but once that
baby is born...
I'm hungry, DIBS!
There are people out there who eat the placenta after birth.
Some are celebrities, some are just weirdos like you and me, and some are completely normal.
But placentophagy, as it's known in the scientific world, doesn't seem to have the benefits claimed
by the people who eat it.
Look, science can take the fun out of anything, so why not this too?
Humans are among a few animals who DON'T practice placentophagia -- almost all land mammals
eat the afterbirth.
And that fact is a common one people cite when they DO eat placentas.
Though the ones who don't are pretty telling...
chimpanzees and scavengers don't, and a study of 179 cultures found basically zero evidence
of placentophagy in any historic or prehistoric human cultures!
I mean, maybe during a famine, sure, but otherwise, nah.
Why?
A study in Ecology and Food Nutrition says, "[If] placentophagia is not a biologically
determined behavior in humans, we should assume that there must be a good adaptive reason
for its elimination."
Placentas aren't some purple sack of miracles.
They’re part of the fetal life-support system, which also includes the amniotic sac and umbilical
cord.
The placenta attaches to the uterus, allowing the transfer of nutrients and oxygen from
the mother's blood to the fetal blood -- keeping them separate.
It protects against bacterial -- not viral -- infections and passes antibodies to the
baby creating three months of immune response at birth…
like a 90-day warranty!
It also produces pregnancy hormones like estrogen, progesterone, and hCG.
After the birth, the placenta is ejected, in what's called the afterbirth.
The placenta is a life-support filter, so it can contain high levels of bacteria, selenium,
cadmium, mercury, or lead.
It can also still contain many of the hormones for its fetal charge which can cause any number
of effects if ingested.
And yet, People claim eating their placentas balanced their hormones, kept them from developing
postpartum depression, boosted their energy, helped them regain nutrients, or stopped their
bleeding immediately after birth!
The most scientific sounding research has to do with pain relief after birth.
A 1986 study from the University at Buffalo found an opioid-enhancing molecule in amniotic
fluid and in the placenta which promoted quote "maternal behavior" in RATS, and another study
also from U-B in 2005 found placentophagia may have analgesic -- or pain killing -- properties
for rats.
One researcher believes, some of the claimed natural energy buzz and the possible lessening
of the baby blues COULD have to do with the hormones in the placenta, but again, there's
no evidence whatsoever either way; and if that's the case, it would be better to treat
the postpartum depression than eat an organ that may not do so.
In the end, though, there's just not really any new double-blind controlled studies on
placental ingestions.
There's a LOT of anecdotal information out there and a TON of media attention, but it's
not a common practice, one hospital in DC found of 3,500 annual births only two mothers
took their placenta home in a year.
So there's no hard evidence to support whether it's bad OR good.
If you DO go for it, just remember it's meat, and bacteria can infect meat; so eating it
raw can be dangerous.
It is meat grown even if it's grown by a human
fetus, after all.
Anyway, if you go for it; you do you, people.