The Placental: the organ of life

Every one of us has been blessed by the gift of this organ, one that seemly appears out of nowhere and as we leave our mothers in birth, it’s work is done and is disposed of with few people ever looking at it or even really recognizing the services it just performed.

The placenta is created when life is created at conception. It grows with the baby and at the end of the first trimester, it takes on the role as the main support system for the baby. It performs a complicated job of passing blood, oxygen and wastes between mom and baby while not mixing mom and baby’s blood.

Another of the placenta’s marvels is its production of hormones for mom and baby. It is known to produce: hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), hPL (human placental lactogen), hCT (human chorionic thyrotropin, estrogens, and progesterone. Though it’s likely that it has even more functions than that, those of which are waiting to be discovered.

At one time it was thought that the placenta had a limited life expectancy, but research has proven this a misperception for a mother who consumed a healthy diet throughout her pregnancy which allowed her to produce adequate blood volume which then produceed a healthy placenta. It is also vital that mom avoids harmful chemicals that will hurt the placenta, things like smoking, alcohol and medications or drugs.

The placenta is literally an organ that gives its all for the life of the baby. When the baby is ready to be born, the placenta’s job is at an end. Once the baby is born, the placenta is expelled from the mother by the still contracting uterus.

For most moms, this is a simple process that occurs within the first 30 minutes after the baby is born. It is examined to assess that all was expelled and either incinerated with the rest of the biohazardous wastes at a hospital or buried in the garden at a home birth. But what if it could do more. What if it has one more service to provide for mom and baby?

Encapsulation Service

Throughout history, humans have ingested the very placenta that sustained their baby’s life for nine to ten months in the womb. Only in the last 100 years has this practice dwindled to an act that, if mentioned, brings about reactions of general disgust. Whether ingesting the placenta is palatable or not, the medicinal benefits of it should not be overlooked.

The placenta is packed full of hormones from its job inside. Once outside mom, it still contains those very hormones - hormones that could continue to be of utmost importance to mom and baby. To ease the squeamish thoughts of roasting a placenta for dinner, modern birth enthusiasts have cleverly developed a method of turning an organ full of potential into a capsule, packed full of maternal benefits. The process entails the steaming of the placenta, followed by dehydrating it, crushing it into a fine powder and finally placing the powder into capsules that mom can swallow, ingesting it, but not eating it.

But why would mom want to do this? What are the benefits? Ever heard of postpartum depression? Of course you have, everyone has. The hormones from the placenta are designed by the body, for the body, and work well with your body to balance that crazy hormonal upheaval of postpartum helping mom avoid the sadness of postpartum depression. But it doesn’t stop there, it also helps with mom’s milk production. What’s key to making mom’s milk? Hormones. The capsules offer an added boost of hormones, aiding the body in it’s production. The capsules, if kept in storage properly, can also aid the menopausal woman. Once again, menopause challenges are generally thought of as a time of hormonal imbalance. The capsules, packed with hormones, relieves mom of this imbalance. The placenta has even been shown to help mom with postpartum hemorrhage, of course this would occur before the placenta has been encapsulated. The placenta, it truly is an organ that keeps on giving.

Encapsulation services includes us coming to your home and preparing the capsules for you right in your kitchen. Depending upon where you live, they could be finished that very day, or the following day if your home is a distance from our own. Don’t want us to do this in your kitchen? We can do it in our own for a small additional fee.

The fee for this service is $175 for us to come to your home. If you live beyond a 75 mile radius from us, there is an additional $50 travel fee. For doing the work in our own home, there is another additional $50 fee.

Contact Jenny at 320-493-5110, or jlcdavis@laborforlove.com.