where do the placentas go?

[plum]

what does hospitals do with placentas? i read somewhere in passing that they are sold. to who and why?

in that case, one should be able to take theirs, right? if you did, what did you do with it?

[Evergreen]

I have heard that they are considered medical waste and are disposed of, but I can not imagine them not letting one take her own placenta! I am sure they don't get asked for it very often, though.

My neighbor had her baby in the hospital and wanted to save her placenta to plant a tree over, so her midwife and I helped her smuggle it out. I was in labor at the time, it was pretty cool.

[rainbowmoon]

We kept our placenta and are going to be planting rosebushes with it soon in a private ceremony. I had an unexpected c/s and almost forgot about it but my MW told my dr. we wanted to keep it and she packaged it up nicely for us. no one said a thing about it and it sat in our room on ice for 3 days, as DH kept forgetting to take it home, now its in the freezer awaiting planting.

on another note I have known quite a few mamas who have made placenta prints or cooked & eaten thier placentas and in some countries it is even common to char it and grind it up to sprinkle on your food.

i hear iit also could be used as a homeopathic remedy for hemmoraging. (you would snip a small piece off and put it under your tounge-supposedly it tastes like sucking blood from a cut)

[plum]

i've been thinking about that today and i think with the next baby, i will keep the placenta. i wish i had thought of that sooner.

why eat it? i think i'd bury mine (ours?) under a tree. i do like that rosebush idea, though.

[water]

My ds's is um...still in the freezer, 32 months later!

And since I'm having a second baby soon, there will be another one to keep in the freezer until we actually manage to do something with it! It takes up like half the space!

Next time I might try eating it though, it's supposed to be good for preventing PPD, and I need all the help I can get! :LOL

[pamamidwife]

In some hospitals, they sell them for testing.

For couples that dont' want to keep theirs, I donate mine to the local Search & Rescue teams to train their dogs. They really appreciate them!

[HeidiJ]

I've heard that if you use it to plant something, you should put it in the ground 1 year before you plant something over it or e,se there are too many nutriants and it will kill the plant. Just what I read somewhere (pregnancy.about.com maybe...)

[citizenfong]

Originally posted by pamamidwife
In some hospitals, they sell them for testing.

For couples that dont' want to keep theirs, I donate mine to the local Search & Rescue teams to train their dogs. They really appreciate them!

Hey, Pam, I knew someone had posted this before...I knew I wasn't making it up! How do I go about doing this? Dh and I have laughed about calling up the fire department and saying, "Hey! I got this here placenta...y'all want it?"

This seems like a good idea to me. We rent and frankly aren't THAT crunchy. :LOL Plus, seems like a pretty good cause to donate to. Wonder if we could write it off on our taxes? How much is a used placenta worth.

As to the OP, I think many hospitals around here incinerate them. And I've never heard of anyone being refused their placenta to take home if they asked.

[stafl]

DD1's placenta was incinerated as "biohazardous waste" (I asked, and it is in the pathologists report). As a "biohazard" they cannot let you take it home with you (that's what I was told, anyway).

DD2's placenta was eaten. The cord and membranes are still in my freezer, waiting to be planted near my garden.
Like with manure, it is too "hot" to plant directly with something, needs to be a foot away or composted first.

Why eat it? Well... lessens hormonal imbalance and all the things that go along with it (ppd, hair loss, dry skin, mood swings), brings milk in sooner, lessens uterine bleeding... so many reasons I can't think of them all right now. http://birthrites.edsite.com.au/placent.html

[kids'ncows]

WOW! I didn't know women actually ate their placentas, that makes me feel a little less strange. My dd was born in the wee hours of the morning at a hospital and the nurse could only scrounge up a really weak turkey sandwich. I was starving and really wanted some red meat! I told dh if I could find a grill or a skillet and stove, I'd cook that placenta up and eat it - no problem. I thought I only got that idea because cows (and some other critters) eat their placentas. I think it's a twofold deal for the animals - less stuff to attract predators and some nutritional value. Maybe there's some latent instinct in us to do it too?

Hmmm, I might consider eating it this time around but I'm afraid dh would never kiss me again if he knew that went in my mouth. He's so not into exotic foods

[KKmama]

I kept ds' placenta. We lived in CA at the time and knew we wouldn't be there forever, so we just kept it in the freezer. We moved it with us to CO, and when we bought our house, we planted it under a tree. We're planning to do the same with the next baby's placenta. I'd like to have at least 3 kids (total), and we're about to launch into some *major* landscaping projects... we just need to remember to leave a few places for the placenta trees yet to come.

I can't report on how the tree's doing yet, because it was planted in the fall. But our soil is pretty crappy, and the tree is going to be pretty big (it's a catalpa). So I'm not too worried that it will get burned.

[pamamidwife]

Originally posted by citizenfong
Hey, Pam, I knew someone had posted this before...I knew I wasn't making it up! How do I go about doing this? Dh and I have laughed about calling up the fire department and saying, "Hey! I got this here placenta...y'all want it?"

Call the local sherriff's office. Ask for their search & rescue team manager.

[tabitha]

if anyone told you you could not have your placenta, they were lying to you.

all you do is sign a simple paper.

we have our still from ds's birth (we rent and have no real place to plant it... who knows what we'll end up doing with it.)


a lot of women eat their placenta. it is not a modern thing, rather a rich tradition handed to us by our mammal relatives. it is not uncommon in asian countries and europe even today. i have posted my reasons for planning to eat mine (in june) over & over so ill just link you to my web log if thats ok :LOL

http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?tab=w...y&uid=59970406

tabitha

[Carol_momof3]

When I had my DS, they told us that they (the hospital) sold them to cosmetic companies to make things out of (EWWWW!!!) Doubly glad I don't wear make up now, lol. You should definitely have a right to keep yours if you so choose.

[Soogie]

I also have donated one placenta to a local Search & Rescue team. My Bradley instructor's brother was the team leader and welcomed all the donations. I have another placenta in my freezer. It has been moved once and is about to be moved again. My hubby thinks I'm strange for toting it around from place to place. But when we are settled once and for all, I will bury it and plant a tree.

Susan

[Soogie]

"When I had my DS, they told us that they (the hospital) sold them to cosmetic companies to make things out of (EWWWW!!!)"

I have seen placenta listed as an ingredient on some upscale shampoos.

Susan

[Greaseball]

My hospital asked if I wanted to keep mine. I didn't know what I'd do with it, so I declined. This time I'm planning to eat it, or at least take a bite. (Dh doesn't think I'll do it! )

I hear it's standard procedure to give them to the pathology lab for routine studies, then they get tossed. Maybe some hospitals won't let you have it at all.

T
I hear that most hospitals have a rule of "If we remove it from your body, it's our property." (I guess this does not apply to babies, though some hospitals make you wonder, the way they take them away when they want and make rules about how and when they can be fed!) But if you get your arm amputated there is no way you're taking it home with you. Though I'd like to see that rule changed...

The rule also affects women who miscarry. They want the fetal remains for a memorial service; the hospital puts them in the incinerator.

[firefly]

I also planted my ds's placenta. We buried it at my mother's house-under her flower garden. I too was worried that it would be put into shampoo. The idea of eating the placenta is very interesting to me. I know that I could not stomach eating it cooked. I have heard that some women dry it and then crush it up into pill containers. They then take it once a day-like a vitamin. If anyone has any detailed info about how to do this, I would love to hear it.

[love2all]

DD's placenta was thrown into the Atlantic Ocean in a prayful way to commemorate a friend who drown a few days after dd's birth. I suppose it became nourishing food for some fishes-- that what I like to think.
DS's stayed in the freezer for a loooooooong time, then when we moved and had to clean out the freezer, we planted it under a tree in a National Forest-- we sang songs of thanks and added crystals into the hole with it.
Mystery 3 is due here pretty soon. I live in a town where many moms make placenta prints and have a placenta reading before doing anything else with it. I feel I would like both of those done and then freeze it for a while..

[Clarity]

they wouldn't let me have mine either (biohazard blah blah) luckily I had a quick powwow with the head of L&D when I was admitted (i circled the tissue disposal section and wrote my own instrctions). So I reminded them that they'd agreed. Since DD's twin had died at 22 weeks, I had her remains and both placentas sent for cremation. They complained a bit, but when my first ds was stillborn they "forgot" to do the autopsy - so they went along out of institutional guilt, I think.

Many hospitals have gotten better about remains, but not consistenly so before 20 weeks. In our state home burial is legal, so it's stupid they won't let you take what's yours.

what a placenta reading like? Sounds almost Roman!