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Placenta nutrients might aid new moms
Friday, October 8, 2010 04:49 AM
BY MISTI CRANE
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
After childbirth, most women give little thought to the placentas that helped deliver oxygen and nutrients to their babies.
But some moms are holding onto their placentas for the benefits they think the organ offers in the weeks after delivery. In China, the tradition of consuming placenta is centuries old. In the animal kingdom, it's commonplace.
The practice, known as placentophagy, is rare in the United States but happens often enough that some people are making a profession out of dehydrating placentas, grinding them up and putting them in capsules.
And hospitals, including those in Columbus, have drafted policies on placenta release in response to requests from women who want them both for medicinal and cultural reasons. In some cultures, the placenta is customarily buried.
Research on the purported benefits of placenta is scarce, but women who have taken placenta capsules say they ease postpartum depression, increase milk production and improve energy.
"I'm not some stereotypical hippie, new-age mom. I'm just a suburban, stay-at-home mom in Gahanna, and it worked for me," said Lisa Beck, who is 39 and had her daughter, Katie-Beth, in January.
Beck has a history of depression, and she and her husband, Charlie, were concerned about what might happen after their baby was born.
"We were kind of taken aback, to be honest," when they first heard from a neighbor about consuming the placenta.
But once she had researched placenta encapsulation, as it's called, and talked to others who had experience with it, the practice didn't seem any stranger than taking a prenatal vitamin, said Beck, who is certain the capsules kept depression at bay for the two months she took them.
"It made everything so bearable. I would do it again, and I would tell anybody and everybody to do it."
Dr. Mini Somasundaram, an obstetrician-gynecologist who delivers babies at Mount Carmel St. Ann's and Riverside Methodist hospitals, said placentas are typically treated like a biohazard and carefully discarded at hospitals. Sometimes, they are sent to the laboratory for testing.
When she first encountered a patient who wanted to consume her placenta, she had the same reaction many people do.
"I thought, 'Gross,'" Somasundaram said.
But once she did some research and considered how common the practice is in other mammals, she said she came to understand why some women might believe in it.
"There's not a lot of medical literature out there because it's sort of a fringe practice," she said, adding that if more women embrace the practice it may generate more study to determine whether the benefits can be scientifically confirmed.
In Columbus, hospitals generally have worked with parents, said Amy Wakeling, who works at CHOICE, a midwifery practice in Westerville, but there have been some problems.
At the start of this year, OhioHealth adopted a uniform policy for its hospitals that ended the practice of requiring parents to pick up the organ at a funeral home, said Connie Garrison, director of women's health services at Riverside and Grady Memorial Hospital.
Unless a placenta has to go to the lab for testing, parents just have to sign a release form.
Ohio State University Medical Center and the Mount Carmel Health System also have policies allowing for parents to take the placenta with them.
Kelsie Meyers, a 31-year-old mother in Franklinton, had such a good experience when she took placenta capsules after her fourth child was born in April that she took online encapsulation training through a Nevada company called Placenta Benefits.
"My husband was the one who noticed the most," she said, explaining that after her other pregnancies she experienced extreme emotional swings but was stable and calm this time.
"Your placenta is full of hormones and iron, and as soon as your baby is born, that drops really fast," said Meyers, who prepares placentas in clients' homes for $150.
She estimated that a half-dozen Columbus women a month hire someone to encapsulate their placentas. They keep in the refrigerator or can be frozen indefinitely, she said.
A placenta makes about 100 to 200 capsules, and women usually start by taking several a day and lower the dose as they see fit, Meyers said.
Some women keep capsules for times when they experience emotional swings brought on by hormonal changes, including during menopause.
"Most women like the idea of having this in a pill form, just like any type of medicine," Meyers said. "There are recipes for stews or smoothies, but this is a little bit more palatable for most people, including myself."
mcrane@dispatch.com
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/10/08/placenta-nutrients-might-aid-new-moms.html
