Placenta Jelly? What is Next?
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Just when I thought you couldn’t do anything else with a placenta! I have seen placenta burial, encapsulation, art, eating, and even a teddy bear made from a placenta… but now we are hearing about Placenta Jelly.
But the problem with this new Japanese product? It not your own placenta being made into a jelly or jam for a mothers ingestion. It is a mass marketed product to promote self healing, and metabolic change. Who really knows whose placenta you are going to get in this new treat.
The Stir translated some information about this product and came out with this :
“Placenta has a very important function that connects the unborn baby and the mother. It creates all the multiply factor of the cell to grow the unborn baby. After the baby is born, Placenta ends its function as organ and comes out from the Body. Many animals eat placenta in order to recover the health. We human being is said to eat this placenta of the mother with their family in the era of B.C. Recently placenta of animals and human being is refined and dosage by way of injection or oral medicine.”
I think it is certainly one thing to eat your own placenta after birth, or even have it encapsulated to benefit from it in that manner, but something about a mass marketed placenta product doesn’t sit right with me. Some of the questions I would have include :
- Uhh… Where did they get enough placenta’s to mass market this product?
- How have these placenta’s been screened?
I mean, I can see your own placenta because you know the origin, and certainly are more attached to it than just any random placenta. But seriously?
Long story short…. you can keep your placenta jelly! I pass!
Ditto! Pass!
With your own placenta, you may be getting nutrients back depleted from your body by your own placenta. For instance I’ve heard of studies that have shown that eating the placenta can curb postpartum depression, and increase milk production. Key words being “heard of studies”. I haven’t actually seen these studies.
I do find this site in particular interesting.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/289824/placentophagia_benefits_of_eating_the.html
an excerpt:
“(eating the placenta)may also increase a mother’s blood levels of a hormone known as CRH (corticotropin-releasing hormone), a known stress-reducer. This hormone is normally secreted by the hypothalamus. According to a study performed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), “During the last trimester of pregnancy, the placenta secretes so much CRH that the levels in the bloodstream increase threefold. However, it was also discovered that postpartum women have lower than average levels of CRH, triggering depressive symptoms. They concluded that the placenta secreted so much CRH that the hypothalamus stopped producing it (http://placentabenefits.info/medicinal.asp).” After childbirth, the hypothalamus doesn’t immediately receive the signal to begin producing CRH again, which can lead to postpartum depression. Eating the placenta can raise a mother’s CRH levels, reducing symptoms of postpartum depression.”
How a mass production of “placenta jelly” fits into all this??? I have no clue. Too much of a good thing can be bad. You’ll have people out there who do not need it, eating it. But isn’t that how it always is?
(IE: Rumors of Tom Cruise eating Katie’s placenta. Why on EARTH would HE need to eat it???)
One small bit of information out of their spiel is that “animals eat their placenta for health reasons”. Not quite. Animals eat their placenta largely so as not to attract predators. The very idea of eating placenta for the fun of it turns my stomach.
I’ll take my own. Encapsulated. And that’s as far as I go with that.
@TheFeministBreeder : I am right there next to you. I see it as one thing to go the route of doing something with your OWN placenta… but eating jelly of mass produced placenta… I draw my line.
I mean… where are all these placentas COMING from?!!?
Guys, seriously. Keep in mind that the placenta does not have your DNA in its cells. It has your baby’s. That’s right — the placenta is actually part of your child that is no longer necessary after birth, not part of you. You’re going to eat it for lunch?