After giving birth, mammals expel their placenta — an organ that’s been in the womb during pregnancy and surrounds the fetus, allowing for nutrients, blood, and waste to be exchanged back and forth — out of their bodies and onto the ground. Or, if you're human, into a garbage can in the hospital. A human placenta usually weighs about 1.5 pounds when it comes out, mostly because it is full of blood. It is customarily discarded by humans, because we simply have no use for it.
Or do we?
For what are not entirely clear reasons, most mammals in the wild eat their placentas after they are expelled from the body, upon giving birth to their young. Interestingly, in humans, the behavior is basically unknown in any culture or civilization. The reasons that have been proposed for mammalian placentophagy (that's what placenta eating is formally called) are various and mostly unproven: Some have theorized that animals in the wild eat their placentas in order to hide evidence of childbirth from predators, while many suggest that eating it has some health benefits for the mother, including pain relief, helping to get the uterus to contract, and of course, extra vitamins. In fact, almost any discussion of placentophagy in wild animals invariably involves nutrition. Animals are almost always hungry.
Regardless of the lack of historical precedent of placenta eating in humans, over the past few years it has gained some popularity, mostly among white, middle class women. Of course, these women are not, like in the wild, simply chowing down on the raw medical waste straight from their own bodies. These days, there are placenta encapsulation services. You, the new mom, only have to save your placenta from being shot into the hospital’s garbage pile. Some states continue to treat placentas as literal biohazard, meaning that hospitals can prevent women from taking them home. Anecdotally, however, anonymous hospital sources in several states suggest that often, doctors turn a blind eye and let women take home what, obviously, belongs to them. From there, a placenta encapsulation service can handle the rest. The services range in price according to lots of factors including where you live, but they run in the realm of between $200 and $500 per birth. The placenta is dehydrated, steamed (sometimes frozen?!), and ground up into a fine powder. The powder is put into capsules — you usually get about 120 from a full-term pregnancy — that one can then ingest as needed.
The placenta encapsulation process often follows a traditional Chinese medicine method developed in the 1700s, with steaming that involves using lemon, ginger, and chili, presumably for seasoning. The Chinese who ingested the placenta often compared it to a “fountain of youth,” and modern proselytizers of the practice claim it can boost vitamin and mineral levels, help ward off postpartum depression, increase milk supply, reduce postpartum bleeding, and improve the texture of hair and nails, which often suffer after having a baby. All this sounds great. Sign me up!
Wait a minute. Why am I saying you shouldn’t do this again?
Because none of this is proven by science, not even a little bit. And while thinking that sucking down your placenta might help your hair grow back nice and shiny is cute, even if it’s only a pipe dream, a lot of the other supposed benefits — like helping with milk supply and postpartum depression — happen to be very real problems women face after giving birth. You really must ask yourself: “Do I want to eat something my body no longer wants or needs based on… junk science and anecdote?” It’s okay if your answer is yes, of course, but please, read on.
What do I mean “None of the benefits of eating one’s placenta are backed up by science”? A couple of things. First, nowhere near enough research has been done on the topic, especially for something so potentially powerful for mothers, at what is arguably one of the their most important life stages. Hey, science, can you look into this for us?
But the other thing it means is: All of the meaningful studies done on human placentophagy have failed to turn up any significant benefits for women, and in fact they have found that eating one's own placenta can have potentially negative effects. The placenta encapsulation industry is, as you might guess, completely unregulated, so there are all kinds of potential if very on-the-off-chance ways one might get sick if the placenta has been mishandled or prepared improperly.
Leaving the “what if I get sick” downsides of eating one of your own organs aside, the research done up to now has found that while the practice of eating placenta to increase milk supply is on the rise in the US, almost no research has been done on whether or not it works. So no one knows one way or another if it does work or not. Here’s an educated guess: It doesn’t. The literature of motherhood is full of bullshit ideas about what foods and herbs and drinks will increase or decrease one’s milk supply. They’re called “galactagogues,” and even the synthetic ones don’t work that well for everyone. The most common, domperidone, is not approved for use in the United States, though it is available in plenty of other countries for gastrointestinal complaints. Nowhere in the world is it approved for increasing milk supply, and the FDA this year warned that the drug can be, for some women, dangerous. Much like the placenta issue, almost no documentation exists to prove the efficacy or safety of galactagogues, and it seems like a crapshoot as to whether or not you’ll get a sufficient milk supply naturally. More research again, please, scientists!
One thing is documented fairly well, however: True insufficient milk supply is kind of rare, and new, alternative methods of feeding babies (called baby formula) exist to help out those women with a lower-than-necessary supply of milk. Formula works just as well, too. Will eating your placenta increase your milk supply? There’s no evidence to suggest that it will not, nor is there any evidence to suggest that it will.
The same goes for pretty much every other claim made about placentophagy. There’s no evidence to suggest that it will ward off postpartum depression or that it will help you if you have it. The disorder, which up to one in five women suffer from in the year after giving birth, is only now beginning to be studied. Its effects can range from relatively minor to extremely severe. Like most depression, it must be taken seriously and treated carefully. It’s always worth giving new things a try, but the placenta is no replacement for good medical care. Again: There is no evidence to suggest that it has any effect on depression post pregnancy.
So if there’s no evidence to suggest that it works, why are so many women eating their placentas suddenly? Because of a combo of celebrity endorsements (January Jones, Alicia Silverstone, several Kardashians) of the practice, anecdotal reports, and lots of websites that will tell you that it cures all that ails you. Placentophagy, much like wellness, is something that a growing number of women think, “Eh, what the hell, might as well try it!” And really: It’s probably not going to kill you. Many women swear by the practice, and while it's hard to discount personal experience, studies have shown time and time again how powerful even placebo can be in the right mindset. And, like homeopathic garbage teething tablets, which were recently recalled and pulled from shelves over serious safety concerns despite being marketed as "natural" for years, it’s worth asking ourselves at least occasionally why we’re putting things into our bodies when we really have no idea what the effect will be.
The trend of women eating their placentas grows from a real desire to have real needs addressed: After all, the things placenta-eaters seek to cure are legitimate. Women don’t always have enough milk; they do suffer from postpartum depression. And while the jury might still be out on if eating our own placentas can help us with those things, one thing is for sure: Science isn’t exactly rushing to help us distinguish fact from bullshit when it comes to women’s bodies.
