Why You Should Save The Placenta After Giving Birth

Unless you have friends from other countries that use natural medicine, you probably have never heard of the practice of keeping the placenta after you give birth.

In many cultures including some in Europe, not only do the women keep the placenta, but they also cook it in a pot with vegetables and herbs and make soup from it. Then the soup is passed out to all family members. Everyone participates in the sharing of the placenta.

What is it about American culture that disregards this important organ? In fact, in some states, hospitals simply dispose the placentas, while in others, they call in the funeral homes to bury it!

Hormone Fluctuations are Responsible for Negative Times After Giving Birth

Having a baby is supposed to be a happy event. But in many cases, women are finding they have serious cases of post-partum depression that interrupts the formation of the mother-child bond at such a critical time period in both lives. Not only that, but the woman feels horrible with serious mood swings due to hormonal fluctuations, pregnancy weight gain that won’t come off, slow healing from surgical incisions, poor lactation, constant fatigue, lax uterus, and extended postpartum bleeding.

During pregnancy, the placenta takes care of a long list of functions in the body through its hormone production. Once a woman gives birth and delivers the placenta, her own hormone levels take a deep nosedive.

One famous actress, Brooke Shields, suffered from horrible postpartum depression. Do you remember her coming out in the media, discussing how bad her life was after giving birth? She tried everything she could and ended up taking prescription medications for depression to try to get over it. The prescription medications can only help so much. Brooke still had to wait until her female hormones normalized before she started feeling better. This case tells us that the bottom line is really getting those hormones in order after giving birth. The sooner you can restore normal hormone levels, the sooner you’re back to your normal self.

The placenta is about the size of a dinner plate. It’s high in protein, iron and stem cells. But it also is full of the hormones that you need to normalize your hormones after giving birth.

It takes about two weeks to adapt to the lower levels of hormone, as the hypothalamus is stimulated to take over this job once again. When hormone levels are low, the baby blues set in hard.

Part of Traditional Chinese Medicine

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the placenta is recognized for its positive effects to rebalance the hormones, not only after pregnancy, but also during menopause. When you look at what happens in the lives of animals during pregnancy and birthing, you’ll find that they eat their placenta after giving birth.

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