Yes, I did consume my placenta.
It’s a decision that Theo and I made together, and it is one that I do not regret. In fact, I’m SO GLAD that I did and I will be doing it again in future pregnancies.
As I’ve shared more about this decision, I have received some negative feedback. I just want to put it out there that this was a personal decision and one that I didn’t just make at the spur of the moment. If you are vehemently opposed to this, I would just invite you to click away from this blog post and we can absolutely agree to disagree. If you are curious about the process and the result, feel free to read on! Just know that I’m writing about my personal experience and that is all this is- answering some FAQs and sharing what my experience has been. I don’t think that this is for everyone, but I will fully disclose right here at the beginning that this IS for me. It has helped me in incredible ways this time around.
Consuming my placenta has made a night and day difference in my recovery. I had two postpartum periods without it and they were both ROUGH. This time around, things have been so much better. Even though we have dealt with Ezra’s hospitalization, I am still far more stable and feeling so much better than I ever was with both older kids.
There is no way to prove whether it is the placenta capsules helping me out, but I really believe that they are. It is worth pointing out that there are two things I’ve done differently this time around- first, I had a large baby. Large babies are hard to get out of the birth canal, but they sure are heartier and healthier in that newborn recovery stage. This could play a factor in my much better postpartum period. I have also consistently taken my other vitamins this time around, which I wasn’t as faithful at doing the last two times. I’ve been taking my Calcium/Magnesium/Zinc supplement as well as a Vitamin D and an iron capsule. Otherwise, I have done nothing different.
Full disclosure: there are no official research studies on this matter. I am not a medical professional and can’t endorse it medically. This is just my personal experience. Please do your own research!
As a believer, are you ok with consuming your placenta?
When I first read this question, I was a little taken aback. Well, OF COURSE I’m ok with it…after all, I did it! But as I thought about it more I realized that this is a matter of personal conviction. In my own personal studies, I didn’t find anything in Scripture explicitly for or against it. However, I can see where some would be convicted by the Holy Spirit that this might be sinful and not right. I personally was not convicted in this way, and so I proceeded with it! If you have more thoughts on this subject, I would highly recommend the book Discovering the Joy of a Clear Conscience. There are some things that are very black and white sins in Scripture (lying, stealing, etc), and then there are some things that are more gray areas (eating meat, homeschooling, dancing, etc). It’s important to pray and consider and listen to the Holy Spirit’s leading. It’s also important to respect other people when they feel the Holy Spirit leading them in a different direction. Obviously, there is SO MUCH more to unpack there but this blog post is really not about that, and I will move on from this question.
Um, what is consuming your placenta? Why would you do this? What is the benefit of taking placenta capsules?
While scientific evidence out there is inconclusive, women who do end up consuming their placenta’s find that they are able to avoid postpartum anxiety and depression, that their mood is more stable postpartum, and that their recovery is much smoother and simpler. Many women also state that their milk supply was increased and that their iron levels returned to normal much quicker. The few very small research studies that have been done show that the placenta does contain many of the hormones needed in recovery.
Theo and I discussed this and I decided that the many stories of anecdotal evidence out there gave me enough reason to try it. Theo laughed and said that even if the placenta just provides a placebo effect, he would be more than happy to have me try it. Real or Placebo, at least there appears to be an effect! You see…I struggled a lot postpartum with both of my other babies. With Tera, I fell into postpartum depression, although I just didn’t know it at the time. Once the fog cleared I looked back and realized that I was probably struggling more than I thought at the time. I thought it was just normal and how Moms must feel! When Kiah came along, he had a hard time gaining weight from the beginning. I think that by Day 2 or 3 after he was born, I was in a deep pit of anxiety. It was crippling, but again…I didn’t realize it at the time. I didn’t understand what was happening and I just figured it was “normal”. Kiah was diagnosed failure to thrive and from that moment until he was nearly a year old I legitimately thought that he was going to die. Like I said, it was crippling. It controlled a lot of my life that first year, and I did try very hard to fight it, but I didn’t understand it fully until it had passed and I could see it in hindsight. Because of those two experiences, I decided to try placenta encapsulation this time around. After my previous two experiences, I was ready to try almost anything. Yes, even consuming my placenta.
Sooo…HOW do you consume your placenta? Dare I ask?
There are several methods of consuming the placenta, but I won’t be going into detail on those. If you feel brave, you can google away! The most common way to consume the placenta is to have it dehydrated, ground into a powder and then put into capsules. The capsules are then consumed, just like any other vitamin or pill that is taken. This is what I did.
I’ve heard it’s really expensive! How much does it cost?
Encapsulating my placenta was $250. I’m sure it can vary based on location and other factors, but this is the price I’ve seen pretty much across the board. I had to pay a $50 deposit and then the remaining $200 when I received the capsules. We are a one income household and we guard every penny we spend, so this cost seemed like a lot to me. But I will say that it was 100% WORTH IT.
Is there any taste/aftertaste?
Nope! It was recommended that I take the capsules with food to avoid gross burps, so I did take them consistently with food. However, I never once noticed an aftertaste, burp or yucky feeling.
Does it seem to help with hormones/mood?
Yes. For me, it helped immensely with my mood. I just felt more stable, and wasn’t set off by the littlest things. I was still tired and I still had night sweats and I still cried occasionally, but I just didn’t have those mood shifts that I’ve had with my other postpartums. I enjoyed postpartum SO MUCH, which I have never, ever experienced before. I haven’t had any depression or anxiety, except for the one week that Ezra was hospitalized. That week was hard, and I knew that I was facing some serious triggers but I was able to handle it and recover from it. If that had happened when I was postpartum with Kiah, I’m not sure I would have recovered from the anxiety.
Does it seem to help with milk supply?
This was one area that I was slightly nervous about because I had heard various stories about the effect the placenta capsules can have on milk supply. Some women say that the placenta helped increase their milk supply, while some say that the placenta actually decreased their milk supply. My doula explained that if I noticed my milk supply decreasing, I should decrease the placenta dose until it regulated. However, I didn’t notice any change at all in my milk supply. I actually have an oversupply of milk and didn’t notice any decrease or increase when I started to take the capsules.
Does it seem to help you physically recover?
I am one of those women who truly just “bounce back” physically. I’m not talking about losing all my baby weight, but rather I just feel good and recover quickly from childbirth. This time around I felt great the moment Ezra was born, and that was before I started taking the placenta capsules. I didn’t notice any quicker “recovery” than what my normal is, but maybe the placenta capsules did help a bit? I will leave a full disclosure here that I did actually bleed for longer this time than with the other two. It was more annoying than anything, and I suppose it could be because of taking the capsules, but if that was my ONLY negative side effect then it’s fine with me. I’ve heard other testimonies of women who have said that their bleeding has stopped much sooner.
How do you consume them?
Once I made the decision to encapsulate my placenta, I wanted to find a reputable person who could do it for me. I’ve heard that there are tutorials on how to do it yourself, but there is no way I would trust myself to do it! Ha! I found a local doula company who also does placenta encapsulation. They come to the hospital to pick up the placenta, take it to their office to dehydrate it and encapsulate it, then bring it back to my house (or the hospital, if I’m still there). The placenta needs to dehydrate for at least 24 hours, but mine was so thick that they did it for closer to 40 hours. The amount of capsules made depends on the weight of the placenta. Usually, a placenta is 1/3 the weight of the baby, so the bigger the baby, the more placenta capsules. I received over 200 capsules. To begin, I took 3 capsules 3x a day. Then I weaned down to 2 capsules 3x a day. Then I weaned down to 1 capsule 3x a day. Then I weaned down to 1 capsule 2x a day, etc. My doula explained that if the baby or I were to develop an infection/virus, that I should quit because virus’ can feed off the iron and hormones in the capsules. Ezra came down with RSV when I had about a week of my capsules left, so I quit cold turkey in order to not feed the virus. I didn’t notice any change from quitting cold turkey, and thankfully I wasn’t too far from being completed weaned off the capsules. From start to finish, I took the capsules for about five weeks.
Did you notice any change when you weaned off?
I felt so great when I was taking the capsules that I was afraid I would crash hard when I had to stop taking them. I made sure to wean off carefully. There was a few days that I forgot to take them and I noticed a difference in my mood for sure- I was way more weepy and “dark”. However, when I quit taking them I didn’t notice any difference in my mood, and now a month later I still feel really great and really stable. I still have moods and days where I cry, but I think that’s a normal part of being a human being/mother! I’m so grateful that the effects of taking the placenta have carried on even through the weeks that I’m not taking the placenta.
How long did it take to get over the weird factor while taking it?
LOL. Listen. Before I had kids, I would have found even the idea of this REPULSIVE. Even after Tera was born, I would have thought it was just for weird hippy types. After Kiah was born, I realized that I needed to do everything in my power to not have the horrors of postpartum depression/anxiety. And that is how I arrived at the willingness to consume my own placenta. I’ll admit it…it was weird. When the doula dropped off the capsules, she also brought me some art prints that she made out of my placenta. I thought that was the WEIRDEST thing ever and I promptly threw them out (what would I do with art prints of my placenta?). She also dried out the umbilical cord and wrapped it up so it looked like a flower but that made me nearly gag. Theo convinced me to not throw it out in case I want it sometime later (?????), but I doubt I will ever feel not weird of about. All that to say that I’m not as gang-ho hippie as I may seem. These things are still weird for me, but I wanted to try it out before I bashed it. Honestly, the capsules look just like any other vitamin and don’t taste funny at all, so I just needed to clear my head of that “weird” factor and swallow the pills. And I’m very glad that I did!
If you’ve made it all the way to the end of this blog post- congrats! I hope that the information has been useful and helpful to you. Please feel free to drop any questions below, or to send me an email! Please remember that I am not a medical professional and you absolutely need to do your own research on the subject. However, I do want to share my experience in case it can help someone else out there!
