Wednesday, December 14, 2011

What is Placenta Medicine?

I currently encapsulate placentas for clients to use in their postpartum period as medicine.  So what is placenta medicine you say????? First let me explain the basics and then we will go into all the detail
                 My daughter wearing her I love placentas T shirt when I did my very first placenta!

  
Placentophagy: is the act of mammals eating the placenta of their young after childbirth. Almost all mammals eat their placentas with the exception of some sea mammals and camels.

Ok so that definition sounds like a terrible cannibalistic description, its much nicer than that I promise! Most people can't get past the thought of eating their placenta, soooo I offer an encapsulated version. We in the western world will take almost anything if its in pill form. So in Short I steam, chop, dehydrate, grind, encapsulate and voila you have placenta in pill form!

So now that you know the how, I bet your next question is WHY? Our placentas are amazing gifts provided by our bodies, they nourish and sustain life. Without them growing our beautiful babies would be impossible. They transfer nourishment, oxygen, blood, hormones, minerals, vitamins and he list goes on..... So all the wonderful things that transfer through our placenta are still there when they cease to function. If you have ever been pregnant or your wife has you know that hormones be raging! but shortly after birth those hormones plummet leaving us fragile and fatigued and for some women depressed :( Have no fear placenta medicine is here! The most common use for the medicine is to ease or ward off postpartum depression or baby blues and increase energy. However the number of other benefits are numerous, lets see what all your placenta can do!

 Your placenta is full of your own bio-identical hormones and healing properties:
  • Gonadotropin: the precursor to estrogen, progesterone and testosterone.
  • Prolactin: promotes lactation.
  • Oxytocin: The Love hormone. Promotes feelings of love and connectedness /bonding; produced during breastfeeding to facilitate bonding of mother and infant.
  • Thyroid stimulating hormone: boosts energy and helps recovery from stressful events.
  • Cortisone: combats stress and unlocks energy stores.
  • Interferon: stimulates the immune system to protect against infections.
  • Prostaglandins: anti-inflammatory.
  • Hemoglobin: replenishes iron deficiency and anemia, a common postpartum condition.
  • Urokinase inhibiting factor and factor XIII: stops bleeding and enhances wound healing.
  • Gammaglobulin: immune booster that helps protect against postpartum infections 
Pretty cool huh?
I process most placentas  according to Traditional Chinese Medicine. In TCM the way the placenta is transformed into placenta medicine is meant to bring heat back to mom. Steaming and warming herbs are necessary steps for that to happen. Without steaming the placenta it has a cooling effect. When baby and placenta are born, the sudden “space” created in her body throws her into a state of yin/yang imbalance, with an excess of yin (cold). So by steaming the placenta with lemon, ginger, jalapeno and dehydrating before transforming it into capsules is all meant to restore this balance. 
Not all of our clients believe or care about what method is used and some feel that by cooking the placenta in any way deteriorates the vital nutrition in the placenta and prefer the "raw" method which is the same minus the steaming. All placentas regardless of method are then ground, dehydrated ground again and encapsulated.


The finished product!









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