Eating Your Placenta: What are the Benefits

Here's an interesting topic that I found on EverydayHealth on YouTube: Do you eat your placenta? It's a fairly controversial topic as some women think it's a great idea whereas others are repulsed by the idea. There are benefits to eating the placenta and it is also considered a spiritual practices in some countries and belief systems. The benefits are:

• Replace vitamin and minerals lost in pregnancy and childbirth
• Increase postnatal iron levels
• Combat postpartum depress (the "baby blues")
• Increase energy
• Reduce fatigue
• Increase milk supply

If you do decide to eat your placenta there are many ways that you can go about it:

• Raw
• Traditionally fried with onions
• A new option is to turn the placenta into capsules and consume regularly after the birth. The placenta is steamed for 8-12 hours, ground into a fine powder and placed into capsules.

Here's the video that got me on to this topic:

  

I'm still on the fence about the subject and would have to talk to some other mothers who have done it. The capsule form would seem to be a better option, especially if you can't stomach eating the placenta in full. However, there is a cost involved for creating the capsules and an average price seems to be between $250-400 (£160-250) now that seems a little pricey but you do get what you pay for.

Let me know your thoughts on eating placenta. Have you done it before or perhaps thinking about it? Or you might be like me and still on the fence and have some questions about it. Again, leave a comment and we'll find those answers.