If you ate your placenta...

[Juvysen]

did you end up with Post Partum Depression after? Did you have ppd with other children and not with the time(s) you ate your placenta? Did you eat all of your placenta or just a little bit?

[Juvysen]

Ok, now look ladies... I know there's a lot of you out there who did either the smoothie thing or the dried/encapsulated thing...

I need your wonderful words of wisdom! Was it worth it??

[bethanyclaire]

DS1 - Did NOT eat my placenta and did NOT have ppd.

DD- DID eat my placenta and DID have ppd (fairly severe)... BUT I had some very serious situational factors that led me to try to avoid ppd in the first place. I started showing some anxiety issues during pregnancy. I firmly believe that my case of ppd was much more situational than anything else and all my care providers agree.

DS2 - I am 1 week postpartum. I DID eat my placenta and, thus far, I am NOT showing any signs of ppd. I feel great, actually.

Both times that I ate my placenta I ate the whole thing over 3 days. I ate 1/3 of it each time in a smoothie with strawberries, bananas, OJ and a bit of sugar. I did it a full 24 hours after birth, again at 48 and again at 72. It actually tasted great and made me feel a lot better within an hour or so of drinking it.

[bethanyclaire]

Originally Posted by Juvysen

I need your wonderful words of wisdom! Was it worth it??

YES!!! It was SO worth it! Even though I ended up with ppd with DD it was still worth it. I had lost a lot of blood with her birth and I had a lot of problems after with weakness, nausea and fainting. The placenta helped with that almost immediately after the first smoothie. It helped even more over all 3 days.

[Juvysen]

YAY! thanks for responding!

The smoothie thing sorta... grosses me out. I wish it didn't because it seems like the easiest/most straight forward way of doing it...

i had what I *think* was probably PPD last time... I called it my "hormonal hatred haze". I wasn't hating on my kids, but definitely was on my husband even though he was AMAZING and picked up pretty much all the slack without complaint. But I remember thinking he was so horrible, while at the same time thinking how ridiculous it was being mad that he was, you know, doing the laundry after having cooked dinner and done the dishes and worked all day... I seriously considered leaving him for *absolutely no reason*... I dunno, I was just sort of a complete mess. I'm technically not sure it was PPD, but it was definitely not something I'm looking to repeat...

[Deir]

Originally Posted by Juvysen

YAY! thanks for responding!

The smoothie thing sorta... grosses me out. I wish it didn't because it seems like the easiest/most straight forward way of doing it...

i had what I *think* was probably PPD last time... I called it my "hormonal hatred haze". I wasn't hating on my kids, but definitely was on my husband even though he was AMAZING and picked up pretty much all the slack without complaint. But I remember thinking he was so horrible, while at the same time thinking how ridiculous it was being mad that he was, you know, doing the laundry after having cooked dinner and done the dishes and worked all day... I seriously considered leaving him for *absolutely no reason*... I dunno, I was just sort of a complete mess. I'm technically not sure it was PPD, but it was definitely not something I'm looking to repeat...

Hi ddc buddy!! I don't have personal experience with this but my MIL describes a similiar husband hating phase after the birth of her 3rd. It lasted a year for her. She said that my FIL said,"it's ok Mary- I have enough love for both of us" Isn't that a sweet thing to say? Luckily she got out of it and they have great marriage going on 41 yrs!!

[Juvysen]

Originally Posted by Deir

Hi ddc buddy!! I don't have personal experience with this but my MIL describes a similiar husband hating phase after the birth of her 3rd. It lasted a year for her. She said that my FIL said,"it's ok Mary- I have enough love for both of us" Isn't that a sweet thing to say? Luckily she got out of it and they have great marriage going on 41 yrs!!

That is really sweet of him I'm not sure James even knew... I did try not to actually spew my venom at him. I know he knew I was not myself, and was pretty down.

I think part of mine may have been from sleep deprivation. Ds decided to start waking every hour at the age of 6 months... through the age of 18 months. As if that weren't bad enough, he also would have once or twice weekly multiple hour scream-fests in the middle of the night... that on top of postpartum hormones? Yuck. Luckily I finally managed to nightwean him at 18 months and he started giving me stretches of several hours at least at night and things got much better... not sure if it was the chicken or the egg, though - maybe he was reacting that way because I wasn't doing so great, myself... I dunno.

[MamaFern]

i voted yes i did eat placenta and did NOT end up with ppd,

but... with my first i did not eat the placenta and i think i had mild ppd. mostly i think it was due to him having undiagnosed tongue tie, which caused some major breastfeeding issues, which in turn was very hard on me emotionally..but i cannot help but wonder if it would have helped me.

with my second i ate a few pieces raw after birth and i really felt the energy from it help me. i planned to dry & encapsulate it and take it that way but never did. i guess i felt like i got what i needed from it.
her birth was hard. she was 16 days "overdue" 10.5 lbs and had sticky shoulders which ended up with me leaping from the pool where her head was born, onto hand and knees on the floor beside where she was basically yanked from me (from what i have been told) my labor from beginning to end was 4 hours. i kind of hurt afterward no tearing though!

my third was a perfect birth, in water, caught her myself, labor was a nice length and though she was also 2 weeks "late" i was prepared this time!
i ate some placenta after birthing it, only a few minutes after i got out of the tub and needed quite a few pieces till i was full of it. also planned to eat more, but never did. i guess the idea of eating it cold and day old kind of grossed me out at the time
i felt great after her birth.

when and if i have another baby i will most definitely eat some of the placenta. raw and right after birth as i did before.

[GoGoGirl]

I voted yes I ate it, and I didn't have PPD.

I had a big chunk in a smoothie right after birthing. I felt great, but who knows if that was the regular post birth high, or the placenta.

I was planning to encapsulate it and eat the rest. It just sat there in my freezer though. I'm a squeamish vegetarian, and the idea just grossed me out. We finally cooked it--the house smelled so awful that I dry heaved for the whole 10 hours--and made the pills like 6 weeks postpartum. I tried a few (like, 3) but didn't feel anything. I gave them to my MIL, who said they kept her up at night.

My SIL had PPD for her first two births. She encapsulated her placenta after her third birth, and didn't have PPD. She took the pills by the handful in the first few weeks after birth, and said she could really feel them boosting her energy and her mood.

[Lizzardbits]

I voted yes I ate it and yes I had PPD, HOWEVER, I couldn't smoothie or encapsulate it as I did not have the equipment to do either. I could only fry it up, cut it up, freeze it in baggies of three pieces, and thaw as needed, and I would swallow whole pieces as chewing was too much of the yuck factor for me. I never finished it, and buried the rest under a tree in my MIL's garden. Plus I also had some situational stress going on (trying to get all paperwork and several trips to the US consulate in order for us to move as a whole family to the US from the UK, oy!) So I had things stacked against me.

This time, I've got a splendid blender, and with a summer babe, I am definately smoothie-ing it!! I have higher hopes that I will avoid PPD

[broodymama]

#1: Did not eat placenta, no PPD.

#2: Did not eat placenta, severe PPD.

#3: 2 days of smoothies, encapsulated the rest. No PPD.