Placenta Encapsulation

The above picture is Ezra's placenta moments after I birthed it. I love placentas! Well, moslty just MY kids' placentas. They are beautiful. Look at that tree of life with the cord attached to it. This is what provided nutrients and sustained the life of my baby boy the entire time he was in my body. It was part of me, part of my child. I had burried Esperanza's placenta along the banks of the Washougal River after she was born. Ezra's I would encapsulate and put back into my body.

A few months before Ezra was born, I came across information about encapsulating placentas for the purpose of balancing hormones after birth. For some people, the idea of eating a placenta is either way too far out there to even consider, or, it simply makes sense. There's probably a middle ground for some too, but for me, it made perfect sense. I was concerned about the possiblility of postpartum depression or 'baby blues' setting in for a couple of reasons. First, though I'm fortunate to have never had to deal with it so far, clinical depression (Bi-Polar/Manic Depression) has plagued our family for generations, so I am at higher risk for postpartum depression as well. And second, I had felt more emotional and sensitive during Ezra's pregnancy than I had with Esperanza, which worried me that it could get worse after birth. Besides, what could it hurt, virtually all other mammals eat their youngs placenta, why not me.

The thought of eating Ezra's placenta raw though did not settle with me. Blended in a placenta smoothe? No thank you. Seasoning then dehydrating it and eating it as jerky didn't appeal to me either. Baking it at a low temperature to deydrate it, blending it into a fine powder, pouring it into tiny capsules and swallowing them like I would a vitamin sounded perfect! My only dilema was how to get it encapsulated. I knew I wouldn't be up to doing it right after giving birth. And the cost of hiring someone to come into my home to do it was more than I wanted to pay, though there are people that do it for a hefty fee. I pondered the idea for awhile.

At my 38 week check-up with my home birth midwife Catherine, I asked her what her thoughts on placenta encapsulation were. She immediately perked up and said, 'oh sure, we'll do that for you'. There has been little to no research or studies done on the topic of placenta encasulation to prove or disprove it's effects and/or benefits of it. It is well known though that placentas contain various hormones & nutrients, the same ones a womans body becomes depleted of after child birth. I also read a lot of personal womens stories on their experiences with eating placents, in various forms, and the benefits they gained from it. Catherine also gave me her personal thoughts and experience with placenta encapsulation. Women whom she had cared for which experienced post partum depression, the capsules help tremendously, for those that did not experience any depression, the capsules didn't do much more than maybe give a small boost of energy. So there you have it, my decision was made, I would encapsulate and eat Ezra's placenta.

After I birthed the placenta on Ezra's birth day, Katie, Catherine's assistant, brought it into the kitchen and began prepping it. I don't know exactly what she did to prep it but I'm thinking she must have rinsed itoff in the sink and cleaned it up a bit.
After cleaning it up, she put it in a steamer over the stove and steamed it for a few minutes. Here it is after the steaming. It shrunk.

Then it was cut up into strips and laid out on a cookie sheet to cook/dry out at the lowest temperature in the oven (the alternative was to use a dehydrater but I don't have one). After this step, we were given instructions on how to complete the process. We were told to let it cook in the oven for 12 hours. After about 8 hours though it looked pretty well done so we took it out. You can see the umbilical cord in the front corner in this picture. Dried in a spiral shape and with a string attached to it later, it'll make a beautiful Christmas tree ornament to treasure and keep forever.

After the cooked pieces of placenta cooled off, we put them in the fridge for awhile so we could all rest. The next day, my sister Geneva began the process of grinding the pieces of placenta up and filling the vegetable based capsules. The 'jerky' look-a-like placenta pieces are in the container on the counter.It was tedious workShe used my coffee grinder to grind up the pieces into a fine powder. The next time we ground up coffee beans and made coffee, I think we all drank a bit of placenta. Filling the capsules with the encapsulating kit I had

Dosage: 2 capsules, 3 times a day for the first 3 days after birth. Then, take them as needed - when feeling down or tired.It has been 4+ months since Ezra's birth and I'm happy to report I have had no depression issues. The capsules lasted me about two months. I stopped taking them consistently after the first month, then just finished them off here and there because it seemed like the right thing to do. I really can't say one way or another if they helped or not but I'm glad I did it. There's no way to predict if a woman will experience post partum depresion or not. I encourage anyone, concerned or not about it, to encapsulate their placenta just in case. I've heard that you can freeze them and they can be taken decades later to help balance hormones during menopause too!