Here is a great article from the SQUAT archives, originally published in our Winter 2010 issue. The step-by-step guide in this article originally appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of CUNTastic Zine. Last week we posted Chia Seeds in Pregnancy and Labor from SQUAT Spring2010.
Placenta Medicine
by Laurel Ripple Carpenter
The placenta is more than just medical waste to be disposed of in a biohazard dumpster. It’s a visceral symbol of the connection between mother and baby--and it’s also a valuable organ packed with hormones and nutrients that your body desperately craves after giving birth.
In North America, though, medicalized childbirth culture has viewed the placenta as nothing more than a disposable by-product of the birth process. The past decade has finally seen placenta medicine grow in popularity in North America, restoring the placenta to its rightful place as a revered source of healing for new moms.
The process of preparing a fresh placenta into powder form has become known as 'placenta encapsulation,' and there are also recipes for tinctures, salves, and various other ways to prepare placenta as medicine. To encapsulate a placenta, it is cleaned, dried, powdered and put into pills, and the new mama takes the capsules during the postpartum period. If there are pills left over, they can be stored in a sealed, dark container in the freezer for later use. Many women save them for menopause, PMS, or other hard times, as a method of balancing the hormones.
We are in a cultural moment right now when the placenta is being reclaimed as a tool for the postpartum mom’s health and well being. Placenta medicine practitioners have sprouted up across the US, and have begun to form networks of referrals, training, and information for each other. Birthing mothers who want to use their placenta as medicine finally have access to the information they need to do it.
The following step-by-step guide to placenta encapsulation was gleaned from different recipes given to me by midwives, books, and websites. For further reading, Placenta: The Gift of Life, by Cornelia Enning, is a fantastic resource on placenta medicine, including historical info and recipes.
Always keep in mind that working with the placenta poses the same risks of disease transmission as touching human blood any other time. So, if it’s not your placenta, wear gloves whenever you’re touching it, and use universal precautions. Also remember that you’ll need to sanitize your workspace and all of the equipment you’re using--the steamer, the knife, the food dehydrator, the grinder, and anything else--with bleach.
What You’ll Need:
- Placenta
- Large Bowl
- Gloves
- Size 00 Gel Caps
- Large, Sharp Knife
- Metal Steamer
- Fruit Dryer
- Coffee Grinder
The Placenta...
should come home from the hospital with you in a sterile plastic tub, wrapped in a bag and labeled with the mama’s name. Open it up and explore! The baby’s side of the placenta has the umbilical cord stemming from it, and the veins running from the cord through the placenta make it look like a tree. The maternal side, which is attached to mom’s uterine wall, will have the remnants of the amniotic sac attached to it, which is like a thin layer of stretchy tissue. This is where your baby lived for nine months. In the tub with the placenta, there will be blood and dark chunks of blood clots.
You can make prints of your placenta as a keepsake. Before cleaning it at all, remove it from the tub, letting most of the blood drip off of it and into the tub. Too much blood will make your print too wet and blurry. Remove any chunks of blood clots from the placenta and put them back in the tub.
Once most of the blood has dripped off, carefully place the placenta face down on a sheet of 12x12 cardstock paper. If you use the side of the placenta with the umbilical cord, you can create an image looking like a tree with a trunk, limbs, and a treetop. People call these images the Tree of Life, as the placenta is what gives your baby life and nourishment in the womb.
It’ll likely take a few tries to get a good print. Once you have one or a few you like, place them somewhere flat to dry. They can be framed or put in your baby book.
2. Clean the Placenta
To clean the placenta, you need to remove the blood, blood clots, amniotic sac, and calcium deposits.
To remove the blood, hold the placenta under a small stream of cold running water. As you do this, let the bloody water run into a large bowl, so you don’t waste it. Plants love the nutrients in blood, and you can pour the leftover blood-water into your house plants or outside plants when you’re done.
Keep the blood clots separate, in the tub the placenta originally came in. Most of them will wash off the placenta under the running water, but you may have to pick some out of the nooks &a crannies. They look like small, bloody, gelatinous chunks. They look a lot like the blood & tissue that your uterus sheds during menstruation.
The membranes of the amniotic sac are attached to the placenta, and you’ll need to remove them. Just cut the stretchy tissue off.
There may be calcium deposits on the surface of the placenta, which are a sign of aging. They appear as small, hard, whitish spots. These need to be cut out before you process the placenta any further.
When you remove the umbilical cord, you want to pay attention to its length and how carefully you cut it, depending on what you’d like to do with it. Some people bury it, or some may want to dry it along with the placenta and save it for their child to have later in life.
Use the knife to detach the umbilical cord from the placenta. If you’re going to dry the cord, you probably want to make sure to cut it off as close to its base as possible. When it dries in the dehydrator, it will shrink and shorten considerably, and you want to make sure there’s enough of it left.
4. Steam the Placenta
The placenta needs to be steamed on both sides for 15 minutes each. After steaming for 15 minutes on the first side, use metal tongs to flip the placenta over and steam it for 15 more minutes on the other side.
This is potentially the messiest, funkiest part of the process. A lot of people (including me) expect the smell of cooking placenta to be unpleasant. But I actually think it smells a lot like baking bread--kind of a full, earthy smell, not foul at all.
After steaming both sides of the placenta, it will look and feel a lot like a very thick pork chop. There may be additional blood, blood clots or calcium deposits visible at this point. Remove them.
5. Slice the Placenta
The next step is to slice the placenta into thin strips, using a large, sharp knife. The thinner the strips, the faster they’ll dry in the dehydrator. You might find more calcium deposits inside the placenta, which need to be removed.
6. Dry the Placenta
You can dry the sliced placenta in a food dehydrator or in your oven. The drying process can take anywhere from 2 to 10 hours, depending on your equipment. Your placenta is sufficiently dried when the pieces are crispy and break easily when you snap them in half. Be sure not to burn them, though, or they can take on a burned flavor, which you’ll taste in the pills.
The drying process is another time where there’s a distinct smell going on. Not necessarily unpleasant, just different. If you’re using a food dehydrator, some people suggest placing it in a window-sill or even outside while the placenta is drying. Be sure to protect it from curious pets or other animals.
If you’re drying the umbilical cord to preserve it, remember that however you arrange it while it dries is how it will be forever. Be creative - spiral, straight, figure eight, etc.
7. Powder the Placenta
Use a food processor, blender, coffee grinder, mortar & pestle, or something similar to powder the dried placenta pieces. The powder has a similar odor to the steaming and drying placenta, and can tend to get all over everything. Make sure to keep a clean workspace and sanitize the entire space when you’re finished.
You can find empty gelatin capsules at most health food stores. You want to use size 00 or larger, to get the ideal dosage. Fill each capsule and close them securely.
It can be tedious work to fill over a hundred capsules with placenta powder. Some stores also sell ‘capsule fillers’ that hold the capsules upright while you fill them in bulk batches.
9. You’re Done!
At this point you’ve produced probably somewhere around 100 placenta pills and a dried umbilical cord! Be proud of your decision to utilize the benefits of your placenta, and your endurance in sticking it out through the entire process!
Dosage recommendations for placenta pills vary, and really it all depends on your personal feelings and needs. You can take anywhere from one pill per day, to two or three with every meal.
The benefits of placenta pills are not only felt during the postpartum period, but at any time of hormonal or emotional transition--menstruation, menopause, or just plain stress. Store your unused pills in a freezer to avoid bacterial contamination, and remember that what’s contained in them is a rare and special resource.
She is founder of the Full Spectrum Doula Network, an online community “supporting the full spectrum of pregnancy choices, and the full spectrum of doulas.” She also founded The Doula Partnership, which provides free & low-cost doula services & childbirth education to low-income women in Western Colorado. She publishes the CUNTastic Zine and the CUNTastic Blog, each of which is part personal, part educational, and all political. She operates Two Rivers Birth Services as a Certified Childbirth Doula through DONA International and a certified Placenta Encapsulation Specialist through PBi. Contact her at laurel@cuntastic.org.
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