It’s a post-birth trend adopted by celebrities like the Kardashian sisters, Blac Chyna, January Jones, Holly Madison and more – but now it turns out that placentophagy, the act where post-partum mothers eat their own encapsulated placenta, is not only pointless but could also be harmful for your child
As it stands, no criteria exist for processing placenta for consumption – terrifying, considering the potential for dangerous bacteria growth in the substance.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the CDC in the US has released a report investigating a case in which a baby from Portland, Oregon, was admitted to hospital with a mysterious and life-threatening infection.
The infection was traced back to a dangerous bacteria found to be living in the placenta which the mother was ingesting, believing it would speed her recovery.
Placentophagy is tenuously linked to numerous physical and psychological benefits including boosted iron levels in new mums, however there is minimal scientific evidence to support this.
The placenta being used by the Mother was cleaned and treated by the hospital after the birth of her child, then dehydrated and turned into capsules by a physician. The report from the CDC suggests that this process was not enough to kill off the dangerous germs. They recommend placentophagy be avoided.
“The placenta encapsulation process does not per se eradicate infectious pathogens; thus, placenta capsule ingestion should be avoided.”
The child recovered after being treated with antibiotics for the infection.
Analysing the health benefits of placentophagy, researchers from Las Vegas’ University of Nevada discovered that if a new mum is iron deficient and solely relying on placentophagy, their iron levels won’t bounce back to where they need to be.
One of the reasons this is so important is that after a woman gives birth, her iron levels can be heavily depleted (it’s not uncommon for doctors to advise new mums to take iron supplements to replenish their body’s iron stores), and many women who eat their own placenta believe that the high-iron content of this reproductive organ will restore their iron levels to what it was pre-birth.
This may come as a shock to celebs like Kim Kardashian-West; the mum-of-two is one of a slew of Hollywood stars who have been very candid in talking about their adoration for the placenta-filled pills.
The mother-of-two revealed on her subscription-only website she’s had her placenta frozen and transformed into pills for consumption.
“So, I’m really not this holistic person or someone who would have ever considered eating my placenta,” Kim insisted.
“I actually thought Kourtney would have soooo done this, but I don’t think she did,” the wife of Kanye West added.
“I heard so many stories when I was pregnant with North of mums who never ate their placenta with their first baby and then had post-partum depression, but then when they took the pills with their second baby, they did not suffer from depression! So I thought, why not try it? What do I have to lose?”
“I really didn’t want the baby blues and thought I can’t go wrong with taking a pill made of my own hormones – made by me, for me. I started researching and read about so many mums who felt this same way and said the overall healing process was so much easier.”
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