Placenta indifference... - Page 2

Mine went out to the curb.

Yeah, that! I am really happy that I consumed my placenta, because it contributed to me feeling healthy, energetic, and even euphoric. I don't feel anything spiritual in relation to placentas, but at the same time, I am convinced that it helped me immensely.

I felt the same way. I let the 'professionals' deal with it. I was grateful for what it did for my children, but didn't need to keep. I guess if we'd had a yard when our first was born we may have planted it, but we didn't. Then it didn't seem right to do it for the second.

With DS, the cord stopped pulsating within 15 minutes or so, and DD (nearly 3 yo) cut the cord. There was starting to be a little bit of worry that the placenta wasn't coming, but once it did, one of the MWs inspected it, showed DD, and it got wrapped in freezer bags and taken to the trash before the MWs left. I barely even glanced at it. The only person who was sad to see it go was DD - she asked for days where it went. I think she thought the baby still needed it, lol.

We are renting right now; if we owned a home, I might have planted it. Probly not though.

As a vegetarian, I was totally freaked out at the thought of consuming it.

We kept the placenta attached for several minutes (usually until after the placenta was out). After my midwife examined it make sure it was complete, we asked her to chuck it.

I'm veg*n and I thought that slicing it up for smoothies and encapsulation would be tough for me. Turns out, I loved doing it

I was totally indifferent with #1. I also felt like I should do something, at least make a print with it, but I honestly did not care that much. It was cool, but I did not want it.
This time, my MW asked what I'd be doing with it, and I told them I'd make a smoothie but neither me or DH were up for butchering something that just came out of me.
But they got all happy and said "we'll do that for you!" I'm thrilled.
With DS1, I had a great rush but then a bit of the blues right afterwards, and I'm hoping that some placenta will give me more boost after the inital hormones wear off. Certainly can't hurt.

But if I had to deal with the placenta myself? Nope.

I have had 5 hospital births. The first 4, I never saw it..I had asked with our 2nd if I could see it when I was in early labor, but when I had him, I forgot and obviously the staff did, as well.

I will want to see it at this birth, just because I think it's awesome that a woman's body creates an entire organ system to nourish a developing baby for a very long span of time...I just would like to see it.

I have zero desire to plant it..we have lots of wild animals where we live, and 2 cats and a dog! I do a lot of gardening and planting anyway, but don't really want to revisit it/see it again once I'm ready to garden.

As far as consuming goes..again zero desire. Perhaps if I had suffered PP depression in the past, I'd be more interested. I don't find any attachment to consuming something my body grew. I respect the choices of others, if they do feel that attachment or desire to..it's their placenta!

As mentioned in other posts, it's important for your baby's health to wait to cut it until the cord has stopped pulsating.

However, my mw was very insistent on waiting at least 2 hours, and I'm so glad we did. The reason is because no one takes the baby from mama if the cord and placenta are still attached. Mom and baby get to just cuddle, relax, and nurse. It's really crucial bonding time. My mw just wrapped the placenta up in a towel next to me on the bed and I didn't even notice it.

Like others, I had no interest in my placenta and I'm not even sure how it was disposed of. I'm assuming my mw or my DH did something with it. This time, I have no interest either.

I planned a homebirth with dd2 (transferred) but never had any interest what so ever in my placenta. Dd3 was a hospital vba2c and so it was the first time I actually go to see my placenta. I still didn't want to keep it (or it eat ) but the nurse handling it was happy to show it off to dh and I. It was kind of neat!

Can I just say that I love the title of this post...?

and also am so glad to see so many mamas with varying degrees of 'placenta indifference'. I'd started to think that 'placenta worship' was the next new religion no offense to any who do feel a lot of attachment!

I have different experiences with 6 placentas....we tried to bury the first deep in the compost pile but the dogs dug it up...a few got planted under trees, not all of which survived...last one (hosp birth) I never saw...anyway, as a mom and mw I do think they're fascinating and like to look at them, definitely more of a science thing. But no emotional/spiritual attachment, once the physical attachment has released--for me, it's use is done and now I have a baby to look at and adore so who cares about the placenta?

I've had a placenta in my freezer for nearly 3 years and it's about to be joined by another within the next few weeks. Not sure where the pair of them will end up. My midwife was all for encapsulating this one but no, thanks. And I am not carting it around with the baby either, I'd probably drop one or the other.

I have heard of people slicing it up and topping pizza with it! I wonder what it tastes like. But I am not THAT curious. I thought about encapsuling it, I had some PPD with my first. But I think it was mostly due to circumstances during that time, and being an uneasy first time mom, not 'knowing' what i was doing...Anyways. Placenta. Placenta Pizza, and SMOOTHIES??? WHAT did they taste like?!? Could you taste 'it'? Is there Any Blood involved because consuming blood is a big no no here!

I had no interest in mine at all. I haven't seen any benefits that can't be had with other methods (vitamins, herbs, etc) and haven't seen proof that it's all that usefulin other ways. I also think carrying it around is gross, and seems like it would risk infection to have a rottinng body part attached to the baby. To each his own, of course, but I didn't do anything with mine nor will do anything with the next ones either. I also don't care about cord cutting early or late, as I haven't seen any evidence that it makes a big difference with healthy, term babies. I ended up with a CS, so by that point it was the last thing on my mind anyway.

No interest here either. 

I'll take a look, but that's about it.  I have no desire whatsoever to eat it or plant it. 

My midwife was shocked when i said it, she said it was the first time she had to figure out how to dispose of it.  I hope she figures it out because I won't be dealing with it ;)  There was some talk about freezing it and donating it to a midwifery program.  I think that would be cool.

I have no interest in it whatsoever. My first 3 were hospital births so I didn't have to deal with it. Now with a planned homebirth my midwife said that it will be attached for about 2 hours. My dh and I were like oh wow! but I will have to talk to her about that because I have zero interest in snuggling with my placenta and I want others to be able to hold the baby. Wonder how insistent she will be?

Wow, I didn't know what lotus birth was and had to go look it up. There was a pic on the wiki page and ewww! Not much grosses me out but that did. I never saw my placenta with my first two kids and this time around I'm not really sure what I'll do with it. Encapsulating it sounds interesting...I'll have to see if anyone around me does that and what the cost/benefits are. If not that I think I'll try and have DH plant it. Maybe we'll get a tree and plant it with it. We have a spot in the front yard where several trees have been planted and not one has survived yet so maybe this will be the trick!  =)

When we have a child I'm leaning toward donating the placenta to a local K9 Search and Rescue team for human remains detection (HRD) training - there may be some paperwork involved in that, but I know when I was on a team it was useful to have human tissue for training the HRD dogs.  Certainly not your normal use, but at this stage I'm not sure I'd want to consume it and certainly don't want it hiding in the freezer lol.  Figured I'd throw that option out there for others in case it resonates with anyone!

Ha, I liked your thread title - & I have "placenta indifference" too.

 

Quote:

Yes, I feel the same way. Lotus birth seems like a major hassle for zero medical benefit. Totally cool if it has a meaning to people spiritually, but it has no appeal to me.

 

With DS, it seems it stopped pulsing & turned pure-white in a mere matter of minutes.

 

I too am interested in the "tour" my HB MW says she gives. In the hospital, DH & I looked & thought it was interesting, but didn't get a "tour" so I'm interested in that. But after the tour, yeah, the MW can have it if she wants it for her own garden, or I hope she'll take it away for me to be incinerated somewhere. (I haven't checked with her yet on if she'll dispose of it for me since we don't want it.)
 

LOL, my sister said the same thing about planting it in the yard - we laughed about how funny it would be to spot a dog running through the neighborhood with my placenta! hehe

 

 

Now THAT is a cool use & something I could really get behind! There are signs up in the local state park where we often hike that they train dogs there, so maybe I can reach out to them & see if they do HRD training & could use it. Thanks for the idea!

 

ETA:

http://www.chesarda.org/page8.html

Here's my local dog-rescue org. The site states that HRD is something they offer (under "our services") and then their "Needs" page lists the need for vet supplies etc., but nothing about donating actual human tissue for HRD training. Could you do me a favor & just let me know if you get positive feedback on this issue? I was going to email, but I'm being a chicken - LOL! I'm thinking they must already have some sort of plan for what they use for HRD, so it may be weird to say, "Hey, you can have my tissue!"

Edited by MegBoz - 12/28/10 at 11:09am

MegBoz - email them!  I know the team I was on did not put it on their wishlist, but that was mostly because they have some specific state requirements that must be met and most of their tissue came from the local hospital (they got placentas there as well as bone from joint replacements), so they didn't want to get deluged by people who didn't "get it" (i.e. needs to be human, no preservation with chemicals, "fresh" is ideal so it can be used fully and handled appropriately from day 1, etc.) or weird people out by asking for human tissue on the wishlist. 

 

Team members would donate stuff from family occasionally and I think they may have gotten a placenta that way, wisdom teeth, etc.  I know someone on another team who donated his old knee (had to jump thru some hospital regulations and paperwork for that one) to his local team without much problem.  The worst they can say is that they don't need it.

 

ETA: homebirthed placentas may be especially useful in some municipalities since in some areas it's considered hazardous waste and the hospitals are required to throw it out no matter what.  Other areas cannot have the doctor give the tissue, but the individual it belongs to may.  Here's the link to the forum I lurk on that discussed human tissue donation to SAR groups: Donating human bone to a volunteer SAR group - the message board can be a bit rowdy, but this thread is a fairly clean one.