Placenta is absolutely loaded with awesome nutrients and hormones.
The main one is iron
which is going to increase the mother's wellbeing
and energy post-partum.
The placenta's also got prostaglandins in it
which help to contract the uterus back to pre-pregnancy size
and also help to bring in milk supply and it's also full of oxytocins
which is the hormone of love so um...
The oxytocin will help with the bonding of mother and baby.
And that also helps to reduce the risk of postpartum depression.
I'm Alicia Langlands, I'm the owner of the Nurtured Bebe
and I'm a placenta encapsulator.
There's a few ways that you can eat your placenta.
You get grill marks across the whole...
A lot of women will just slice it up and eat it raw,
often freezing it in cubes.
Some women will cook it up as lasagne, spaghetti.
Some women also have smoothies as well and they'll have it whizzed up
with some berries and other awesome smoothie ingredients.
I find that encapsulation is a little bit more palatable.
It's just a bit easier to swallow.
Humans... we're just mammals at the end of the day.
We are mammals and every mammal consumes their placenta.
Usually my clients contact me while they're pregnant.
When they go into labour usually they'll send me a message
when the baby has arrived.
When I collect the placenta I'm happy to collect it
from whoever is at the hospital supporting the mother.
- Congratulations. - Thank you.
- How did everything go? - Yeah, went well.
- Is it labelled? - Yep.
I do everything I can to get it back to them by day three.
Before the third day blues hit.
I usually wear an apron just cos, you know, it's a bit messy.
So we've got my client's placenta here.
So this placenta's really cool...
The veins are running right through the membranes
which is pretty unusual.
So we're going to steam that for about 20 minutes.
It's a small placenta so we don't need an excessive amount of time.
The placenta has a very distinct smell.
When it's fresh, it smells quite earthy.
Sort of like a woman's menstruation might smell.
After the steaming process, because of the ginger and the jalapeno
it's very, very meaty.
I can't cook with ginger any more.
So we steam it until it's basically a medium rare steak.
You want the outsides cooked but you want the insides pinky and red.
You can see the outside is cooked but the inside is really raw still.
So now I'm just going to slice it up really thinly.
I slice it so it can dehydrate evenly.
Sort of treating it like you would any other meat,
wanting it to stay at a reasonably high temperature
so that it cooks.
So now we're ready to turn on the dehydrator
and let it dehydrate for at least 12 hours.
So this has been on for just over 12 hours now.
You can see the dried placenta there.
It's crispy so it's ready to grind up.
I read a lot about encapsulation when I first started with the process.
I learnt from midwives... other encapsulators.
I've learnt through word of mouth
and through the wisdom of other birth workers.
The encapsulation process of course is relatively new,
since we do have dehydrators and that sort of thing.
However, the consumption of placenta is certainly not a new thing.
- How are you going? - Good, how are you?
- Congratulations - Thank you.
- Is Anastasia here? - Yeah.
- Hi, how are you? - Good, thank you.
I think it's a really important organ that plays such a vital role
in your baby's life and you can't just do nothing with it.
Your placenta was absolutely gorgeous,
it was really beautiful, really healthy.
These are your placenta capsules.
Definitely a lot of people that are like, oh my god, no, that's terrible
and there's a lot of people that you hold back from telling
because you know that their response is not going to be a positive one,
like my mum, when I first told her about it,
she was like, oh that's so gross.
But once I explained to her why I wanted to honour that organ
and all the benefits that it had to taking it
she kind of came around to the idea.
It doesn't taste like anything, it's like taking your vitamins.
ALICIA: Placenta's given your baby life
for its entire time in utero.
And then to be tossed as clinical, medical waste,
it seems a bit disrespectful.