Placenta what? you ask. Placenta encapsulation is the process of dehydrating the placenta to be ground into powder, placed into capsules and consumed by the mother. Yes, I am talking about placentophagy. Why on earth would anyone want to practice this, you ask? A few very good biological reasons to start. For starters all land born mammals(except camels for some odd reason)consume the placenta of their young. It is not to hide the fact that the birth occurred, as the animal would also have to eat all the dirt and what not around it to hide that fact. It is believed and had been researched to help hormonal balance after birth, provides iron that is lost during bleeding and increases milk production due to the hormonal properties. This is practiced by many cultures world wide.
So why did I do it? I hadn't intended on it actually. I knew I was having a home birth, but I was concerned with the placenta. I was starting to feel like it was wasteful to throw out an organ that I grew along side my baby. So I started researching things to do with it. I did not want to plant a tree with it as the house we were in was not ours and we were to be leaving it soon after the birth. I certainly was not eating it raw or in any kind of stew!! So I embarked on research mission to learn to do it myself.
Did it help me? Yes. My milk production was out of this world. I had more energy. I healed faster and I haven't had a hint of the blues or depression. All things I struggled with when I had my first baby. I still have some capsules and if I feel like I need a boost I take a few and it works wonders. My milk production kicks up within 12 hours and whatever cruddy feeling I was having passes and I feel good again. At almost 12 weeks postpartum I still feel bad days coming on. I feel like its a great answer in my bag of tricks to pull thru the hardest months. I wish I would have known about it with my first one.
So with all that said I am actually getting ready to start a class to become a certified encapsulation specialist. I am going to share the experience and process with my own here.
This is my placenta about 48 hours after Fiona was born:
At this point the cord is still attached
I did not keep the cord. I have read a few stories where it was kept as a momento. I'm good without it.
you can see where the arteries went in
I rinsed it off really well in the sink removing excess blood and clots. Then I wrapped the membranes around it. Fetal side out.
This is what it looks like inside the steamer basket(which was ruined, FYI)
Traditional Chinese method requires lemon and ginger in the water for steaming.
I steamed it for about 20 minutes on each side, stabbing with a fork to ensure it was bled. When it was done I took it off the steamer. There was little to no smell while doing this, I promise!! It was less than half the size it started as by this point. The flaky looking stuff is the membranes that it was wrapped in.
I left it overnite, about 8 hours total to dehydrate. It is EXTREMELY hard when dry, I'm talking concrete hard here.
I broke it up into small pieces and put into a mini food processor. It sounds like rocks being ground. Ultimately I ended up using a mortar to grind it all down fine because the processor just wasn't doing it. I will say there is a slight smell of blood during this process. It was not unpleasant, just there.
I used a capsule machine to put all the powder into the gel caps. I opted to use size 0 as they are smaller than the 00. I do not like swallowing large pills. I ended up with 118 of these. Because they were smaller than stander I took 3-4 a day for a couple weeks when I was feeling bad. You cannot taste them at all.
I really enjoyed doing this and I am so thankful my placenta didn't end up as medical waste. Now to get certified!!
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