In the West, the majority of placentas are dumped in the trash. But the placenta is considered sacred by some cultures. And virtually all mammals, including herbivorous ones, eat their afterbirth. Placentophagy, as it’s called, may be inspired by a new mother’s need for extra nutrients or her desire to erase the trace of her birth in order to throw off predators; there is also a theory that the placenta contains a pain-deadening molecule. Most people are repulsed by the idea of eating their own flesh, particularly an excretion from the vagina. But one person’s gross is another person’s delicious, as we know from the fact that fresh monkey brains, fried roaches and dog scrotum are delicacies in various parts of the world. As anthropologists know, “yuck” is culturally constructed.
According to USA Today, there’s a growing group of women who believe that ingesting their placentas may help stave off postpartum depression.
Placentophagists argue that since most other mammals eat their placentas, humans should too. (For a full list of reasons to chow down, click here.) But critics point out that not all mammals are placenta munchers — and that there are plenty of other reasons, besides mood elevation, that an animal might consume it, including as a source of nutrition or as a pain-prevention method (which would make ingesting it post-birth pointless). What’s more, according to a State University of New York at Buffalo professor who wrote his 1971 doctoral dissertation on the subject, keeping the placenta away from animal mothers didn’t make them depressed or cause them to withdraw from their children.
According to USA Today, there’s a growing group of women who believe that ingesting their placentas may help stave off postpartum depression.
Placentophagists argue that since most other mammals eat their placentas, humans should too. (For a full list of reasons to chow down, click here.) But critics point out that not all mammals are placenta munchers — and that there are plenty of other reasons, besides mood elevation, that an animal might consume it, including as a source of nutrition or as a pain-prevention method (which would make ingesting it post-birth pointless). What’s more, according to a State University of New York at Buffalo professor who wrote his 1971 doctoral dissertation on the subject, keeping the placenta away from animal mothers didn’t make them depressed or cause them to withdraw from their children.