What kind of game: why do people eat the placenta

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Onions, butter, beef, tomatoes, human placenta, spices, milk are the ingredients for lasagna. We have not confused anything, such a recipe exists. The life hacker understands why people eat their organs and is it time to queue up for a fresh placenta.

Who eats the placenta and how

The placenta is the only temporary human organ that is required for pregnancy. After childbirth, the placenta is separated and usually remains in the hospital. What is done with the placenta after childbirth in health care facilities? … But this is optional. First, it is increasingly being taken with them. Second, women who give birth at home can do whatever they want with the placenta. As strange as it may seem, many people want to eat it (and not only women).

The placenta is somewhat similar in structure to the liver, and is eaten in about the same way. They say that the taste of these organs has something in common. We do not know how true the recipes for pies and cutlets with organs are and whether anyone tried to cook them, although such stories circulate on the Internet. There is enough absurdity in this topic, so it is difficult to figure out where is fake and mockery, and where is real experience and real examples of placenta cookies with coconut oil.

There were even women who prepared smoothies from raw placenta, because it is in this form that it should convey the maximum useful to the mother's body.

Publicly about the placenta is most often told by the stars who dried the placenta, packed it in capsules and ate it. This approach is promoted by Kim Kardashian, Alicia Silverstone and a dozen more foreign celebrities. …

Yes, pills are made from the placenta. To do this, it is cleaned and washed, large vessels and films are removed, dried in a dehydrator, crushed and collected in gelatin capsules, like other medicines. This is done by enterprising doulas (assistants who can be taken with you to the maternity hospital for a partner birth) or midwives who accompany home births. Both have the physical ability to receive a placenta, so that later they can quickly send it for processing. Still, it quickly deteriorates.

In principle, the whole process can be done on your own by purchasing empty gelatin capsules (this is not a problem) and sending the placenta to dry in a conventional oven. A detailed recipe can be found on the blogs of the masters who do this.

We warn you that the photos in the gallery below can be shocking, so if you're not sure what you want to see, don't go through all the images.

Placenta capsules

You need to take a raw placenta

Steam it

Cut

Prepare for drying

Crush

And fill in gelatin capsules

The packing work costs from 8,000 rubles (but it all depends on the prices of a particular doula). You can choose a cheaper option - order a placental tincture and receive a cord amulet for it as a gift.

Why are they doing that

The placenta answers What is the placenta? transporting the mother's nutrients to the fetus, removing waste products, and helping to protect the fetus from some infections (although many cross the placental barrier). In this case, the placenta separates the blood supply of the pregnant woman and the child.

The placenta contains hormones, vitamins, enzymes and blood. Therefore, many people decide that the placenta should not be given to anyone, but should be used for the benefit of the mother and small child. People who are anxious about the placenta, perceive it emotionally, endow it with special energy and believe in miraculous forces that may not be associated with its composition at all.

The placenta is an amazing gift, a magical organ that provides the baby in the womb with protection, breathing and nutrition. If the baby lacks something for development, the Placenta itself will collect it from the mother's body, even if the mother is starving - the child will not be deprived. The Placenta, his natural Guardian Angel, takes care of him and his health!

Valeria Zhemchug doula

In their opinion, the placenta helps to restore the level of hemoglobin in the blood after blood loss, to obtain vitamins and a dose of hormones that contribute to proper lactation (the formation of breast milk). Due to the presence of hormones, the placenta is credited with treating and preventing postpartum depression and creating a special bond between mother and child. For fathers, this also works in theory, as well as for other family members: the use of the placenta should unite everyone and cause tender feelings for the newborn.

Many rituals have formed around the placenta. … The placenta is taken with them from the hospital, in order to bury it in some clean place: take it out and bury it in the forest or, in extreme cases, at least in a city park.

The placenta is buried in flower pots, in which trees are then planted: specifically to grow and give to the child. The placenta is tied with a heavy load and sent to the bottom of the sea or river, because it is necessary.

They take prints from the placenta on paper, call it the "Tree of Life" and hang it in a frame on the wall.

After home birth, the organ may not go anywhere: it is placed in a separate basket and waited until the placenta itself mummifies and falls off - this is called "lotus birth".

When they cannot decide what to do with it, they temporarily put it in the freezer, where it waits for a decision next to dumplings and frozen blueberries.

So fried placenta dinner isn't the only option, albeit one of the strangest, because we usually don't eat people or parts of them (aside from our nail biting habit).

Formally, the placenta is not part of the mother, but part of the child, it is tissue with the DNA of the fetus. Its cells contain the same chromosomes as the child, half of them are maternal, the other half comes from the father. So eating the placenta is not equal to eating your own part. Everyone himself determines the measure of what is permissible, but eating the placenta smacks of cannibalism.

Is it possible to eat the placenta: a scientific approach

Researchers at Northwestern University in the United States analyzed Placentophagy: therapeutic miracle or myth? 49 articles that were devoted to placentophagy (this is the scientific name for eating the placenta) and were published from 1950 to 2014. They came to this conclusion:

"Research examining the use of the placenta to facilitate uterine contractions, restore normal estrogen cycles, and milk production are inconclusive."

Indeed, the placenta contains both hormones and iron. But no one knows exactly in what quantities and how much will remain after processing - freezing or drying. The placenta is usually dried at low temperatures to retain all the nutrients. At the same time, unhealthy substances are also stored in it. The placenta is not sterile - it works as a protective barrier for the fetus and, in addition to useful components, accumulates harmful ones: mercury, lead, cadmium. It is home to bacteria that can cause infections even in a newborn if it is passed into breast milk. Study Questions Practice of Placenta Eating. therefore, doctors do not recommend eating the placenta.

Researchers have also dispelled the myth that placentophagy is an old tradition that existed in all societies. After analyzing the traditions of 179 peoples, it turned out that the placenta was used for rituals only in three. Many proponents of the use of the placenta like to refer to traditional Chinese medicine, in which dried placenta powder is known, but even these traditional methods have no evidence of effectiveness or justification of work.

Some theories about the benefits of the placenta for relieving pain and establishing contact between the mother and the newborn have been confirmed to some extent by studies in rats, but scientists have come to the conclusion that everything is much more complicated in humans, so placentophagy will not help us, nor will it improve production milk. The only 1954 study that examined how the placenta affects lactation does not meet the scientific criteria: there were too few participants and important objective factors were not taken into account.

Placentophagy does not bring us closer to nature.

Animals eat the placenta because it is necessary in the difficult conditions in which they find themselves. They constantly do not have enough food, and even more so for pregnant females: they physically cannot chase after prey or have time to reach the most delicious leaves. It is much easier for a person, especially a modern person, to eat well throughout pregnancy and organize a diet for the postpartum period than to try to make up for the lack of nutrients and blood loss with dubious methods.

There are often stories on the Internet that women who suffered from postpartum depression after the first birth took the placenta after the second birth and did not have negative symptoms. The study found that most of them self-diagnosed postpartum depression.

The claims that women feel better after consuming the placenta have not been tested by anyone. But, judging by the polls, women who ate the placenta really have a higher mood. It, of course, cannot be measured or tested, and no one will say whether these are special substances or the awareness of the fact that a woman is doing something "useful for herself" is working. In addition, such surveys were conducted by organizations that produce products from the placenta - the very capsules, for example.

What kind of game?

The fashion for everything natural sometimes takes on strange forms, and placentophagy is just such a case. When you are promised magical effects after consuming just one product, think about what the catch is and whether it is worth experimenting on yourself. After all, if it seems to you that the world is going crazy, then perhaps you are right.

We want to tell you more about the weird and wonderful things around us. Share in the comments your observations of what kind of game is happening next to you and what you would like to know.