Paging Dr. Grunebaum: Should You Eat Your Placenta?

Yesterday we kicked off Placenta Week with a thought-provoking piece on placenta encapsulation from the Northeast Doulas.  Today we hear from Dr. Amos Grunebaum of www.BabyMed.com on the other side of the debate.

Why I Don’t Believe Women Should Eat The Placenta

The placenta is a fetal organ consisting of an umbilical cord, membranes (specifically, chorion and amnion), and placental body. The placenta is a unique pregnancy organ which functions to sustain nutrition for the developing fetus. It supplies the fetus with nutrition from the mother and eliminates waste from the fetus to the mother. After delivery of the baby, the placenta is expelled from the uterus and either sent for further pathological and microscopic examination, if there are certain indications, or it is simply discarded.

After giving birth, many mammals eat the afterbirth, the placenta. Humans don’t…usually.

More recently, mostly in the United States, there has been a minority movement that recommends eating the placenta after delivery, in some cases in line with modern, “New Age” or holistic cultural beliefs.

Eating the placenta is called “placentophagia”. Recommendations for how to eat it include raw, cooked, or in capsule form and there are many recipes found how to cook the placenta.

The reasons behind these recommendations to eat the placenta after delivery are not always clear, though some claim benefits such as less postpartum depression or increased nutritional benefits.

Do pregnant women in other cultures eat their placentas after birth?

Some proponents claim that many other cultures have a different view towards placenta-eating, and use this to argue that it should be more common in the US.  But where is the evidence that eating the placenta is used in other cultures?

There is simply no known major culture on earth known where human mothers eat placentas after birth.  There are certainly some rituals around the world concerning what to do with the placenta after delivery, including burial and treating it as sacred or as another child with its own spirit.

However there are no major cultures around the world where eating placenta is part of the culture. Statements that other cultures such as Chinese, Indians, and others eat placenta after birth are simply not true.

Does eating the placenta constitute cannibalism?

Placental tissue is mainly derived from the fertilized egg and carries the fetus’s genome. In other words, the placenta constitutes the same tissue as the baby.  Technically, eating the placenta fits the definition of cannibalism: eating the flesh of another individual of your own species. And considering that placenta is meat, can vegetarians eat placenta?

Are there health benefits to eating the placenta?

There are no studies online that have shown that it’s safe to eat placenta. Other than the simple “yuk” factor, theoretical risks of eating placenta include contracting infectious diseases, especially if the placenta has not been cooked thoroughly.

Are there health benefits to eating the placenta?

According to some websites, health claims include:

·      Increase general energy

·      Allow a quicker return to health after birth

·      Increase production of breast milk

·      Decrease likelihood of baby blues and post natal depression

·      Decrease likelihood of insomnia or sleep disorders

·      “Definitely worth considering as part of a holistic postpartum recovery for every expectant woman.”

I have done extensive research on eating placenta on PubMed and in the peer-reviewed literature and could not find any study that confirmed any healthy reasons for eating placenta. There is no scientific or other clear evidence that eating the placenta serves any health or other purpose.

I am concluding that there is no scientific evidence to support eating placenta (placentophagia) after delivery as a health practice. Anyone who claims otherwise simply does what others have done for many years: Sell you snake oil.

You can hear more from Dr. Grunebaum at BabyMed.com.  You can also follow BabyMed on Twitter or Facebook.

Tags: placenta week