They Eat What?!This began as an article about being a mom over 35.
I was researching fertility rates and pregnancy complications for women having babies in their mid-to-late 30s – I was nearly 37 when I gave birth to my son, Oliver, last year – when I was stopped dead in my tracks by a section on a U.K. website.
Placenta Recipes, it read.
I promptly forgot all about my research and clicked onto the section. It opened with a disclaimer from Mothers 35 Plus, which runs the website.
“This section on eating your placenta is included for your amusement only and shouldn’t imply that Mothers 35 Plus takes this seriously!” the disclaimer read. “However, if you have eaten your placenta and/or have a genuine recipe, then please let us know and we will try to include it.”
As my stomach turned squeamishly, I scanned through the recipes for roast placenta, placenta lasagne and placenta spaghetti bolognaise. My husband took one look at what I was reading, shuddered and fled the room. Garlic, tomatoes and onions – it may rhyme with polenta, but no amount of ingredients can make it appetizing.
The practise has a name, placentophagy, and it made headlines a few years ago when Tom Cruise told GQ magazine he planned to eat the placenta after the birth of his daughter, Suri, with actress Katie Holmes. The actor –a tabloid favourite at the time for his bizarre, couch-jumping antics – was kidding, of course, but his comments were widely reported as fact.
As unpalatable and, frankly, gross as it sounds, there is a belief among a small number of mothers that the placenta, which nourished their babies for nine months, can fight post-partum depression, due to its high vitamin and hormone content, and ward off other post-pregnancy complications. Some women will have their placentas dried, ground up and put into capsules to ingest in the weeks after giving birth to ward off the baby blues.
It’s a belief rejected by medical experts.
“Animals eat their placenta to get nutrition, but when people are already well nourished, there is no benefit, there is no reason to do it,” Dr. Maggie Blott, spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists told the BBC.
I remember shortly after my son was born, our midwife, a sweet, earthy grandmother, held up the placenta with reverence to show me and my husband. “This is where your son lived,” she said with a smile.
I took one look at the quivering, purple mass in her hands and I had to turn away. After 32 hours of labour, I was already too well acquainted with my body and all its functions. I couldn’t take anymore glimpses into the wonders of the human body.
Some mothers take their placentas home to plant in a garden – or to make art or possibly recipes. I can only presume mine ended up in the hospital incinerator. I can, in a small way, understand why some women show a little more respect to the placenta than I did. I’m not religious, but now that I’m a mother, I can’t help but see conception and birth as a bit of a miracle.
That said, I only took my son home from the hospital. He was all I needed.
Now, back to my research...
-- Sarah Green
sarahg@babyontheway.ca | 
