Placenta Encapsulation: What the Heck?

This past May, my friend Chelsea and I made the drive up to Los Angeles for a Pregnancy Awareness Month event held at Tree People. Before we went, the PR people for the event emailed us a list of exhibitors so we would be well prepped in what we wanted to do. As I read it, I came to "Placenta Encapsulation." HUH? I emailed Chelsea, with the words highlighted and a simple, "What the heck?!?" I was visualizing a 1950's doctor's office with huge jars filled with formaldehyde and organs floating in them. "You can have that done to your placenta?" I thought. Well, Chelsea and I stumbled upon the

booth and it turns out that placenta encapsulation couldn't be more different than what I was visualizing. Sara Pereira, owner of Mommy Feel Good, who was advertising her Placenta Encapuslation services that May day, began telling us that women from a variety of cultures, eat their placenta after birth for a myriad of reasons; some of which are: to help them recover more quickly from childbirth, prevent the "baby blues", combat fatigue, balance hormones and enhance milk supply. The website Placenta Benefits.info says, "Among the Chinese and Vietnamese, it is a customary practice to prepare the placenta for consumption by the mother. The placenta is thought to be rich in nutrients that the mother needs to recover more readily from childbirth. In Italy, women have been known to eat parts of the placenta to help with lactation. Hungarian women bite the placenta to expedite the completion of labor. And knowledgeable midwives in this country have their birth mothers take bites of raw placenta to help stop hemorrhaging, due to its beneficial oxytocin content." Sara was a perfectly normal person--not a (for lack of a better term) crazy hippie with far out notions. She went on to tell us that what she does is take the placenta after birth, dehydrates it, and then puts it into capsules for you to take. Easy as that--she was so convincing and enthusiastic about the subject, it almost made me wish I had done it with my placenta. So, if you're currently pregnant and want that extra boost, you may want to do some further research. These sites can help: Mommy Feel Good: The FAQ's about placenta encapsulation Natural Baby Pros: Your Amazing Placenta Placenta Benefits.com: Placenta for Healing