Woo or True?: Placenta Consumption for Prevention of Post-Partum Depression

This is something I’m experimenting on. I’ve thus far taken a very long creative break from blogging. I have a long list of ideas that I need to actually work out, but this one is my favorite. I call it “Woo or True?”
 

In “Woo or True?” I will discuss a parenting topic I see debated and discussed often and whether or not it is scientifically sound. As per usual, I source as much as I can, and my source list can be found at the very end of this blog. I welcome any and all suggestions for topics. These posts will also be attempted to be kept as a somewhat light read.

I do personally apologize for the LONG break of posts here on Back From Nature. Enjoy!

♥ Maranda

An often underestimated topic in the natural parenting community is placenta consumption. It’s a topic I saw more often than almost any other, and yet it is also one I almost never see discussed on science-based parenting blogs, websites, or groups. I, myself, had wanted to consume mine. I can still recall reading placenta pot roast recipes online. 

“I ate my placenta with some fava beans and a nice chianti”

In fact, there are people with entire careers based on placental encapsulation (the act of steaming, dehydrating and grinding the placenta before putting it into a pill) for new mothers. Mothers, doulas, and midwives of various backgrounds can be found promoting consumption either by cooking it as any other meat, raw, encapsulated, or in smoothies. But where’s the proof? What does placentophagy (the consumption of placenta) supposedly even do? Does it completely prevent the PPD or just alleviate it?

 

What they say it does:

“I truly felt better shortly after taking them--on mornings when I felt sluggish or anxious, I could feel a change in my body after taking the pills.” [1]

“The difference between my first two postpartum periods and the third was simply amazing! Instead of about five days of crying and feeling totally overwhelmed, even paranoid, I experienced one afternoon of teariness and then I was able to recognize that my feelings were related to hormones. I felt more in control than I had with my first babies and so much happier.” [2]

“The placenta is thought to be rich in nutrients that the mother needs to recover more readily from childbirth. . . . Researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducted a study that focused on CRH (Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone). . . . They concluded that the placenta secreted so much CRH that the hypothalamus stopped producing it. Once the placenta was born, it took some time for the hypothalamus to get the signal that the CRH levels were low, and to begin producing it again.” [3]*

           Proof that it’s true:

Well, not much.  Like a lot of things in the world of woo, I seemed to find that most of the “proof” of the benefits of placental consumption came from moms all boasting about it to eachother. If you find this to count as evidence, I wish to direct you here.

Listed in my third source above, was a few studies. Now, I had to google it, as their source link was dead, but I did find the 1995 Discover study on CRH and PPD. [4]

Human placenta is also used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Proof that it’s woo:

           Firstly, I’d like to point out that nowhere in the study on CRH and PPD was placental consumption ever discussed or brought up or researched. Not once. Consumption was not part of the study. The conclusion was made, clearly, in the part of the author of the post as well as other placental consumption advocates, who made the conclusion that “If I lose this and get depressed, then when I eat it it’ll make me not depressed.” 

Placental encapsulation businesses are also held to absolutely no standards, guidelines, or rules. There is no body that sets regulations for how a placenta must be handled when encapsulated. As a result, the dangers of having someone take your placenta and encapsulate it are many. They could be throwing your placenta in the toilet, they could be throwing it in the garbage and giving you ground up hair. Dramatic, but truly the risk of strangers without training or mandation on encapsulation.

 “Well,” you may be saying “I’m not having someone else encapsulate my placenta! I will be handling it all on my own!”

In 2012, Michelle Beacock of Edge Hill university conducted a study published in the British Journal of Midwifery that found that evidence of proof behind anecdotes about placental consumption is limited, dated, and ultimately inconclusive. [5]

In 2015, Northwestern University in Illinois conducted a review published in Archives of Women’s Mental Health. The review looked at placenta-consumption related research since 1950 and could not find any data to support the claims that eating the placenta raw, cooked, or in pill form carried any health benefits. Also in the review, was the fact that there are no studies which look at the actual risks of placental consumption. [6]

And do I really have to debunk traditional Chinese medicine?

           So, is it woo or true?

           SURVEY SAYS….. WOO!

           There is nothing current, detailed, and conclusive that supports this idea that placental consumption will prevent PPD. The closest thing to that evidence is anecdote, which as you know, simply is not enough. There are also no studies that address the potential risks.

           Back From Nature, and science, firmly recommend that you do NOT eat your placenta for any reason.

           You wouldn’t eat poop. You wouldn’t eat vomit. You wouldn’t eat your liver. Please, don’t eat your placenta.

SOURCES:

[1]          Milioto, Biba (October 22, 2013)                                http://www.xojane.com/healthy/why-placenta-encapsulation-is-the-smartest-post-partum-decision-i-could-have-made “Why Placenta Encapsulation Is The Smartest Post-Partum Decision I Could Have Made”

 

[2]          Sarah     http://placentabenefits.info/testimonials.asp

[3]          Selander, Jodi                                                    http://placentabenefits.info/medicinal.asp “Placenta for Healing”

* A fun note on this source. While this post discusses the benefits of placenta for healing, including stopping hemorrhaging, preventing PPD, promoting breast milk production, enhancing pain tolerance, etc, there is a disclaimer at the bottom that says: “This site is for informational purposes only. It does not intend to treat, cure, or prevent any disease.” I found this particularly interesting because, while this legal disclaimer claims this is not intended to treat a disease, it seems fairly obvious that is exactly what the intention is. This is one of many examples of truly sneaky practices made by woo-promoters in order to provide bogus health advice without getting sued when it doesn't work.

[4]          Ilona S. Yim, PhD, Laura M. Glynn, PhD, Christine Dunkel Schetter, PhD, Calvin J. Hobel, MD, Aleksandra Chicz-DeMet, PhD, and Curt A. Sandman, PhD (1995)                     http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2768579/ “Elevated Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone in Human Pregnancy Increases the Risk of Postpartum Depressive Symptoms”

[5]          Beacock, Michelle (July 1, 2012)                 http://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/bjom.2012.20.7.464 “Does eating placenta offer postpartum health benefits?”

[6]          Cynthia W. Coyle, Kathryn E. Hulse, Katherine L. Wisner, Kara E. Driscoll, Crystal T. Clark (October 2015)                Archives of Women’s Mental Health, Volume 18, Issue 5, pp 673-680 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00737-015-0538-8 (Placentophagy: therapeutic miracle or myth?)  --OR-- http://www.bbc.com/news/health-33006384

 

"Natural" Parenting is Unfeminist and Unnatural

I'm sure you've seen the tee-shirt. It's an old cliche that's been circulating since the first wave of feminists cleared the path we stand in today.

Across the chest, in clear, all-caps font, it reads, "This is what a feminist looks like."

"Feminist" can look like many things-- fat, thin, black, white, athletic, disabled, young, old, male, female. But I couldn't have imagined that the shirt would ever look so painfully ironic on me. I remember catching a glimpse of it in the mirror when my oldest child was two years old. I was emaciated, sick, dirty, and sallow. My eyes were mad with panic and sleep deprivation. I couldn't remember the last time I'd showered or slept. I was losing it.

This is what a feminist looks like, indeed.

We rarely discuss the hidden costs of what the crunchy community calls "natural" parenting. We rarely talk about the toll it takes on women and the number of moms who have struggled, hurt, and even died because of a desire to fill the role of Perfect Mom. But natural parenting has a human cost. And women are almost always the ones who pay the price.

Let's consider, for example, Charlotte Bevan. She and her baby died because she stopped taking her medication for schizophrenia so she could breastfeed her baby.

Then there's Joanne Whale. She wanted a natural birth and trusted her body. She died as a result.

Or what about Katy Isden? She took her own life in devastation because her baby was unable to breastfeed.

Those are only the deaths of course. They don't account for all the other pains and toils of being a "natural" mom. They don't account for how it feels when it's two in the morning and you're absolutely covered in vomit and you really need to put your crying child down for a minute to take a shower, but you can't because your child shouldn't ever have to cry.

                                   

They don't account for how it feels when your doctor prescribes you a medicine that might impact your sleep, and when you ask your mom friends for advice getting your baby to sleep in his own crib, they all tell you to stop taking your medicine or to let your baby sleep with you anyway-- and you know that they're telling you to choose between risking your life or your child's.

They don't account for when you're in your twenty-third hour of posterior labor with a nine-pound baby and you're screaming in pain but know that you'd be betraying everything you believe in if you ask for an epidural.

They don't account for when you're extremely sick and you're so dehydrated that you pass out every time you try to stand, but your spouse keeps bringing you the baby so you can breastfeed him, and you don't even think of formula as an option.

They don't account for when you're "baby-wearing" your four-year-old and your back hurts so bad that you're near tears, but because she's a special-needs kid with gross motor delays, you can't let her walk... and you always swore you'd never buy a stroller.

They don't account for when your baby has never taken a bottle, and Dr. Sears and Dr. Newman both say that's fine-- even preferable-- and while you nurse your baby, you start weeping over how much you would give to just be able to leave him with someone else for an hour.

They don't account for when you banned food coloring and preservatives from your home and have to explain to your children why they can't have a Superman birthday cake or eat their Halloween candy.

They don't account for when you have to shake rotavirus diarrhea out of a cloth diaper while you're struggling with untreated morning sickness, and you retch and gag and dry-heave over and over.

They don't account for when your two-year-old is screaming in pain from an ear infection and you just keep putting garlic oil in it, hoping that it will somehow solve the problem, until you finally go to the doctor and hope that your crunchy friends never find out.

They don't account for when you really, truly, desperately miss your career, and you fantasize all day about just having a normal job and picking you kids up from daycare, but instead, you're at home spraying poop off your cloth diapers and wondering if anyone is ever going to know your deep, dark secret about wanting to go to work.

"Natural" parenting hurts. But more than it hurts men or even children, it hurts women. We are held to a superhuman standard of behavior. We are not supposed to have human needs. We are not supposed to need a night out with friends, or a job, or hobbies. We're not supposed to want to spend the day anywhere besides the playground, the farmer's market, the kitchen, or the homeschool co-op. We are not supposed to want sex, or alcohol, or soda, or babysitters. We are supposed to spend every moment of every day enslaved to our children, folding to their every whim, and we are supposed to enjoy it.

That's what the culture of crunchy motherhood-- the greener-than-thou cliques of organic Stepford Wives-- orders of us. That's why, in the "Bible" of attachment parenting authored by definitely-not-a-mother William Sears, all but one in twenty paragraphs is directed at mothers. It's why attachment parenting Facebook groups have a 98% female membership. It's why there are no beards anywhere to be seen at cloth diaper meetups. The culture of natural parenthood tells us that parenting is hard, and that those of us who give birth have an obligation to bear these burdens ourselves.

Real "natural" parenting: Aka Father with his son.

Perhaps the strangest reality of natural motherhood is that it isn't, in fact, natural. Women in hunter-gatherer societies actually have a tremendous amount of help caring for their children. Aka fathers, for example, hold their babies for about 20% of the day and most of the night, only passing them off to Mom or grandma to feed. Overall, hunter-gatherer fathers are actually more involved and more attached to their babies than people surviving by any other means of agriculture or production. If we want to live "naturally," we need to hold other caregivers responsible for our babies-- not just the parent who happens to have given birth.

Of course, it's never a good idea to do anything just because it's natural. But, if your goal is to live in the way that humans were designed to live, the kind of attachment parenting that places near-sole responsibility of children on their mothers' shoulders isn't the way to go. Real natural mothers have help. They have sisters, brothers, husbands, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends who feed, nurse, and otherwise care for their babies. They don't spend the first three years of their babies' lives as most crunchy moms do-- drowning in sleep deprivation and worry. They have help.

We need to abandon the toxic, sexist culture that has come to dominate the natural parenting community. The culture of crunchy moms that values a child's every whim over the human needs of his mother is not a sustainable culture at all. It's time to shed our conceptions of motherhood as an arms-race to see who is the most successful martyr of natural parenting. It's time to stop shaming mothers who can't, or don't, breastfeed, cloth-diaper, stay at home, homeschool, buy organic, and cosleep.

It's time to evolve.