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Placenta Eating Offers No Benefit To Mom

Posted by timothy on from the may-I-interest-you-in-some-calamari? dept.

Dave Knott writes: While some celebrity moms swear by it and have made it trendy, a new study says that consuming the placenta after birth offers women and their babies no benefit. In fact, the practice — known as placentophagy — may even pose unknown risks to mothers and infants, according to a team from Northwestern University in Chicago, who pored over the accumulated research on the issue. They found no data to support that eating the placenta — either raw, cooked or in pill form — protects against postpartum depression, reduces pain after childbirth, increases a woman's energy, helps with lactation, improves mother-child bonding, replenishes iron in the body, or improves skin elasticity. The researchers also said that there are no studies examining the risks associated with eating the placenta, which acts as a filter to absorb and protect fetuses from toxins and pollutants.

4 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Why half measures? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Eat the baby too, and get *all* your nutrients back.

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    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  2. Animals eat the placenta because ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... they need to conceal their where about, to leave no trace of their young ones from being hunted down

    As for humans ... they are simply stupid

    1. Re:Animals eat the placenta because ... by hey! · · Score: 5, Informative

      ... and wild animals don't waste valuable calories or protein. It's not that the nutrients in the placenta are *especially* good for you, it's just that nutrients period are good for you and hard to come by.

      I once went on a winter hike with a park ranger, and he identified some tracks in the snow as coyote tracks. So I naturally asked how he could tell it was a coyote and not a dog being taken for a walk. The answer was that domestic dogs are so well-fed they waste energy running all over the place; coyotes are always on the edge of starvation so they nearly always travel in a perfectly straight line.

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      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  3. Re:Disgusting... by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Animals do it because, as long as they can digest it, it's a significant source of nutrition right after massive energy and biomass expenditure.

    Humans do not suffer from lack of other sources for replenishment as animals do. There's no need to go hunting for prey to get food after birth.