Should I Consider Eating My Placenta?
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While the popular celebrity Kim Kardashian West swore that placenta helped to boost her energy, television artist January Jones vouches for it being a cure for postpartum depression. There has been constant media news in and around placentophagia, that is eating a part or all components of afterbirth, which also includes placenta. However, the real question is whether this trend has any real benefits.
The Mad Men actress Jones had ingested capsules created from her placenta that curbed her depression. Most mammals do consume their afterbirths, but scientists are unsure as to why that happens. One reason cited is that consumption of afterbirths ensure no predators get attracted to the birth location. But then, this is only a hypothesis.
A recently in-depth analysis to understand its benefits showed that there were none really. A comparative study was conducted of women ingesting placenta-made capsules to ones who ingested a placebo. The study showed no substantial changes occurred in the energy level, mood, bonding with the infant, or hormonal level in women ingesting capsules built from placenta (1).
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Study On Placentophagy
The aforementioned study was conducted by a behavioral neuroscientist from the State University of New York, Buffalo – Mark Kristal. He has studied the practice of placentophagy across different animals for over forty years. Not just humans, but most mammals consume their placenta. It was concluded that placentophagy in rats caused the mothers to look after their pups better. It also helps in relieving the birthing pain of the rats as placenta acts as an analgesic that is related to morphine.
Though it is quite unclear whether any such benefits are observed in human beings, consumption of placenta is gaining attention. Once upon a time, before the 1970s, the placenta was just occasionally used in Chinese medicine to treat specific diseases in men and women. However, now, one can even find cookbooks that help to prepare and store placenta-based meals and smoothies.
The consumers today start with first steaming and dehydrating the placenta. It is then pulverized and molded into a pill, which resembles a vitamin.
What Does Placentophagy Actually Do?
To figure out whether this practice really does achieve anything, a medical anthropologist, Sharon Young, from Las Vegas’s University of Nevada conducted a study (2). She then registered 27 healthy and pregnant women for the study who agreed they would consume placenta before signing up. From the pregnancy’s 36th week up till three weeks after childbirth, the women met the scientists four times.
In each of these meetings, the women were asked to fill up a list of questionnaires, and also provide a saliva sample for hormonal level analysis. While some of these women took pills made from their own placenta, others consumed placebos made from vegetarian mock beef or beef. Obviously, the women were not told which type of pill they were consuming – placenta-based or placebo.
The study suggested that the placenta-based pill did not have any significant effect on the hormonal levels of women whatsoever. Thus, resulted in no substantial difference in the energy levels or the mood of a woman. The same study further revealed that the pill made from placenta showed no effect in the fatigue and postpartum depression either (3).
Sharon and her colleagues did acknowledge that the survey was not comprehensive. Firstly, the research was done on quite a small sample size. Secondly, the selection was not random, so, can hide the difference between control and treatment samples.
Mark also mentions how it would have been interesting to see a study with one more group, which was receiving neither placenta nor placebo capsules. He said it would have also been nice if they would have looked at other aspects of placentophagy, like pain relief.
Probably, there might be compounds present in afterbirth which could prove to be beneficial for the mother. However, it is also likely that these components get destroyed while being cooked and processed to make it edible. Also, placenta acts like a filtering system and can also contain harmful toxins. Presently, Mark believes that there is not enough evidence to support the relevance of placentophagy at this point.
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