Placenta Inspection

[snowbunny]

Just a quick Q ...

DH and I are planning a UC for our 1st due toward the end of the month.

Neither he nor I have ever seen a human placenta in all its flesh and glory. I saw a cow placenta once, but it was not intact and it was about 10 yrs ago. All the placenta images we can find are in books--and they're black and white diagrams.

So, is it obvious when a placenta is intact or not intact? Does anyone have links to photographs of intact vs. not intact placentas so we can learn to tell the difference?

Thanks!

[Synchro246]

This link has some pics, but some of them look more unhealthy - the bottom one is an ok pic. http://www.twilightheadquarters.com/placenta.html
Usually you can tell by looking closely if a piece is missing, but if the piece is small and depending on where it fragmented sometimes it can trick you and you might think that it's intact when it's not. I'm sorry that this isn't a very useful answer. The good news is if there isn't any cord traction preformed I doubt that your placenta will fragment.
I did an image only search on metacrawler.com and found these:
http://www.truax.org/3_tom/1log/03/p..._open_side.htm
http://jynmeyer.com/danny/placenta.html
this one shows the maternal side:
http://www.birth.hu/placenta/imagepages/image7.shtml
http://www.wahms.net/placenta.htm
http://members.tripod.cl/anexos_embrionarios/5.html
http://www.yorku.ca/caitlin/harriet/...s/placenta.htm
I don't know why "normal" is in quotes here and it isn't a particularly useful picture for your purposes but: http://www.freewebs.com/randomrubbis...licalcords.htm
here is a pic of a Succenturiate & bilobate placenta- a rare thing, but if you had one this is what it might look like http://www.thefetus.net/page.php?id=181 it's not that big of a deal, but it can be more likely to fragment or break.
Here is a picture of a chinchilla with it's placenta (not useful I know, but how could I NOT include it) http://www.greenwoodchinchillas.co.uk/afterbirths.htm

Well, I hope that some of this helps.