I know it sounds disturbing but there seems to be more and more women who are opting to "eat" their own placenta. There are actually many cultures around the world and many animals that eat their placentas after they give birth. However, in my "western mind," I find the thought repulsive.
There is an actual term for eating your own placenta. It is called human placentophagy. People who engage in this practice believe that eating the placenta will help them recover faster from childbirth and help to increase their milk supply.
The first time I had ever heard of this in our "modern" society was from a Time Magazine Article that I read before my first child was born. I was so taken aback by the premise of the article that I still remember it to this day. The article, "Afterbirth: It's What's For Dinner," detailed the author's wife's experience with placental encapsulation. Her placenta was cooked, dehydrated, ground up and put into capsules for her to consume. He even posted a video of the experience. The practice of making placenta capsules is gaining in popularity among natural medicine practitioners and home birth advocates.
If eating your placenta is something you would do, you can find recipes online as well as step-by-step instructions (complete with pictures) for making your own placenta capsules. If you don't want to eat your placenta, you can always make pieces of art with them. There are people that will make prints with the placenta, dye clothing with the placental blood, make teddy bears with the placenta or pictures with the dried umbilical cord!!
If you've done any of the above, I'd really like to hear about your experience. I personally couldn't do it and thought it was more than enough to have my husband photograph my placenta (not going to post the picture to spare you).
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