What did you do with your placenta? - Page 2

[Sara29]

The reason I wanted to thaw it was to show/explain to dd where she had come.You know the various parts and all.I guess I will just have to wait and see.Ofcourse I can show her the siblings placenta if hers is all mushy
sara

[saige]

Thanks for all the great ideas! I love the reciepe,too!

[azaria]

Hi Sara -
Be forwarned that thawed placenta is really, really different than what it was like at birth! During a class last week we thawed out 4 placentas that I had seen at the births, and I was kind of thinking it would be like reuniting with old friends (I'm mesmerized with placentas, I admit). I was disheartened to see that they were all gunky and friable and came apart really easily (which was actually kind of good to see the layers of the membranes). And the smell was definately not like it was pre-freezing.....
Just lettin ya know it will be a bit different!
happy thawing,
azaria

[ramlita]

Y'all are so comforting!
I've been feeling like a flaky weirdo for having DD's placenta in the freezer for 16 months now!

a coupla questions:

Has anyone heard of eating placenta immediately after birth to stop hemmorhaging?

Anyone know of specific plants/trees that would especially thrive on placenta? any that might not like it??


They're so cool. I wish I'd gotten a better look: our midwife showed it to me just a little while after the birth, when I was bone tired,
and by the time I was rested enough to want to really look at it, someone had put it in the freezer!
Oh well, I'll just have to grow another.

[Earthymama]

omg saige....Cameron's placenta is in MY freezer too....lol maybe we ought to bury both our kids' together and they will share a special bond or something...lol!
Earthymama

[saige]

LOL Earthymama!!! I'm surprised we never discovered them in each other's freezers!!!!! I feel better though,Cameron's older then Willow!!!!! (Whatcha wainting for?)

[Raven1]

My son's (first one) hung out in the freezer for about 2 yrs, because we intended to plant it under a tree and never got around to it! We kept thinking, well, let's wait until we have a place of our own(owned) and we never did. Sort of awful, but when we moved out of our house, DH went back to clean out the fridge on our last day and the new owners/corporation who bought it had removed everything from the freezer and dumped it on the counter. Needless to say, none was worth saving, much less say that bag full of placenta
Second time (dd) I told the midwife when she asked, "Put it in the freezer; I'll throw it out later,"lol! Too true.
Sigh. I wish we HAD planted them, but in the grand scheme of things, oh WELL! Kim, mom to Forest, 10 and Lily, 2.5

[Earthymama]

strangely i am waiting for the right time lol. i dont feel like i can just thaw it and do it....i m going to come across a ritual or recipe or something that will just grab me and scream this is it! and then i will know its the right time.
or we will be moving and mr earthy will evict it before i see whats happened
:
Earthymama

[pottermamma]

We saved Isaiah's in the freezer until his first birthday!!! On his b-day we took it to the mountains behind our house and planted it on a hillside overlooking the whole valley (this is one of our favoirte places to go walking and seemed like the perfect place to nourish with his placenta). Dh and I each said our prayers and then we covered the hole and placed some rocks on top.
We also wanted to plant it with a tree on our property, but I really wanted to have the ceremony on Isaiah's first birthday, and he was born in November, so, it would not have been good planting time. I didn't thaw it out though, but the midwife did show it to me after the birth and pointed out the tree of life on it made by all the blood vessels!!!!
Just a funny story to share:
I was at my SILs house for dinner when Dh and I went home in Oct for our wedding. There was a woman there who was about 7 months pregnant at the time. Everyone began asking me about Isaiah's birth (they were all so amazed that it was drug free and totally natural). My other SILs boyfriend asked my how I birthed the placenta since Isaiah was born int he water. I began to tell him, and the whole rest of the dinner table that I birthed the placenta on the bed yadda yadda yadda. I got to the part about how we kept it and took it home and had it in the freezer still. Everyone at the table FREAKED (and DH was gone playing with all the kids, so no backup:mad: !!!). I began explaining how many cultures kept the placenta and how there was no way that I was going to throw something in the trash that nourished my son for 9 months!!!!! (they were all so grossed out and just laughing and totally making fun of the situation ~ honestly I almost cried they were so horrible about it ~ I just chalk it up to ignorance though!!), then the soon to be dad came up and began telling the others how some folks eat the placenta, I guess that saved some face for me in my in-laws eyes. When I told Dh about the whole thing he seemed happy he was out of the room, but also felt bad that he wasn't there to stand by me. It still comes up at family gatherings to this day

[pella]

I hope I didn't miss this already being mentioned in one of the above posts, but have any of you ever made a Tree of Life print with your placenta? My friend was plannning to do one but she ended up having to go to the hospital for an emergency cesarean and didn't get the chance. I've never seen one but it's sounds so interesting. I'm thinking about doing one, before either planting or freezing it.

[cottonwood]

I think I already mentioned that my 5 and 3 year olds' are still in the freezer... however, I have just planted my baby's under a willow tree, for which she is named!

[OceanMomma]

When I had dd#1, I had no idea about anything to do with saving placentas. That was years ago now. This time, when I had dd#2, I had planned to do a tree of life print. She ended up being an accidental unassisted home birth. They'd called an ambulance so by the time it got here, dd had already been born but the placenta hadn't come out. The ambo guys were pretty hot & were wandering around my bedroom in white gloves. Then this midwife, who was really unpleasant who I'd never met before turned up. She wanted me to squat on the bed in my office clothes ( dd was early & I had been to work that morning ) in a pool of blood, in front of 2 hot guys & push the placenta out. Needless to say nothing happened. So she told me to go to the toilet. All I did was sat down to pee & it fell out. We then had to fish it out of the toilet & put it in a carrier bag & take it to the birthing suite at the hospital coz my midwife was there so she could check if it was complete.

I asked her to do me a print. She looked at me like I was a loon, but still did it. It was a bit smudgy. Poor placenta had been on a bit of a journey by this time. I got her to give it to me to take home. dh was horrified. Eventually I managed to get the placenta home, I'd love to have tried eating it but dh is way too straight & would have been totally wierded out by it. In the end, I got him to plant it under the kauri tree in the front yard.

[staleyg]

I've got big plans for my placenta!

DH and I bought some really nice water color paper and plan to do a tree of life print. i also want to take several pictures of it. i saw an amazing one in midwifery today. also i'm sure we'll plant it somewhere, sometime.

those recipes are great! thanks

[tea olive]

i am eight weeks along with third baby and am considering eating the placenta. i've been really thinking about how pregnancy and birth are relatively great for me i've had two natural births. but post partum is terrrible. after the high of having a baby, i sink very low and i was thinking why do we discard all those wonderful hormones?

i'm not exactly excited about ingesting this organ, but it's starting to look like an option. the possibility of preventing depression in an organic manner is something i must discover. what i'm wondering is does cooking break down hormones? i know some are still intact in other meats. and should i ration this thing? should i share it? i dunno if i can be a cat, eat it all raw at once. with wasabe maybe?

as for cooking, i know a little about cooking. can anyone tell me what kind of meat this resembles in taste and texture?

if you've eaten your placenta i want to hear from you.

[paula_bear]

If you like, I'll get a hold of some recipies and post them here. My midwives pointed out that the placenta is the only meat one can eat without killing an animal. Many animals eat their placenta and I'm sure humans did, too, before we developed some sort of taboo against it. If one is suseptible to PPD, I think eating the placenta would be a wise way to prevent or at least minimize the symptoms. I fully support your decision, whatever it turns out to be. Let me know if you need more info.

(In case you didn't see, I already posted two recipies: one for grinding the placenta into a powder, which can be put into capsules available online or at your local health food store; the other for a tonic, similar to Bach's flower remedies.)

[DashsMama]

Casina, this is how a friend of mine (one of my midwifes actually) ate her placenta. During the first week after she gave birth, whenever she was feeling tired or frazzled she would make herself a fruit smoothy with a chunk of raw placenta whirled up in it. She actually craved it because it made her feel so much better. She is the only person anyone in the midwife practice has ever known who actually ate the entire thing!

[tea olive]

i appreciate your candor and encouragement for what most people would consider unthinkable. i've already printed out your recipes paula, thank you.

i did find some other recipes but most interestingly an account written by mary field on birthrites.com. she found herself unable to eat it cooked so she kept it in her refrigerator and would slice a little chunk off with e knife, put it in the back of her throat and swallow it.

this method appeals to me since i'd rather not lose properties of the placenta by manipulating it. the fruit smoothie is a great option for the same reasons. thank you, dashs mama. i'm very interested in making the powder and the essence. the essence sounds especially easy. hey if this works then i WILL have the energy to do these things.

mary field also mentions craving it and noticing an immediate antidepressant effect when she ate placenta. she also says she had a ten day lochia when with her previous baby she bled for five weeks.

the more i read about the healing properties the more i'm convinced i will have to try this. i have had, in modern circumstances, two model pregnancies and births and the placenta may be the missing link. when i had ppd the first time i attributed it to being a new mother and learning to nurse. but when it happenned again it really baffled me. i thought i had reached a good place in my life and was beyond these insanities.

i'll make sure to let y'all know how it goes late november-december. hey i'll have fun looking for special vessels for the mother essence. more wonderful than saffron diamonds or gold!

[paula_bear]

Best wishes, casina, for another wonderful pregnancy and glorious birth. I hope you can avoid PPD this time around by making use of that most miraculous organ, the placenta.

[saige]

Thanks everyone who responded to this!!! I think I may do the freeze dried pills thingy.I'm going to pass the recipes on to my midwife,thanks a bundle for printing them out!! You rock!!

[rainsmom]

Tree of life print

Mine is in the freezer too, but I just wanted to add my midwives do prints of the placenta by placing them in paint and pressing them on watercolor paper. They look great!