Monday, June 16th, 2008...8:57 pm
#41: The All-Purpose Placenta
Quick test: you have just given birth and your body has expelled a bloody, viscous blob of uterine vomit called the afterbirth. Do you say (a) “Will someone please clean-up this medical waste?” Or (b) “Mmmm… That looks like it will make a nice tea!”
If you said (b)… Congratulations! You are a Best Parent Ever! In fact, there are many Best Parent Ever party plans for the human placenta. These include burying the placenta under a rose bush, turning it into some kind of stylish art or craft, and/or cooking it in any number of meals, including lasagna, pizza, and even a placenta roast. Have you vomited yet? If not, just type “placenta recipes” into that Google box in the upper right hand corner of this blog, and you will find all kinds of foodie websites devoted to the human placenta, as well as youtube cooking demonstrations. We’d provide links, but, well… ewww.
So what’s so great about treating one’s bodily discharge like some kind of vaginal wonder smoothie anyway? For starters, the Best Parent Ever has a knee-jerk disregard for most Western traditions (like, say, the traditional aversion to consuming human flesh). The Best Parent Ever loves to embrace “alternatives” — especially ones like this, that have been blessed by Mud Hut Super Moms. It doesn’t matter that, for many of us, touching or consuming afterbirth is akin to crocheting a sweater vest out of used tampons, or making monkey-like mud pies with one’s own feces. It’s non-traditional — and that means it’s best.
So take that, cannibals everywhere! You no longer have the market cornered on the consumption of human body parts. The Best Parent Ever is sucking down placental cocktails and post-natal-membrane appetizers like they are at some Tapas bar run by the criminally insane. And THAT’S why they’re better than you. Just beware the next time the Best Parent Ever says they’re having “delivery” for dinner — they may not be talking about a take-out restaurant.
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23 Comments
June 16th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
um.eeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!
This is my FAV part: Just beware the next time the Best Parent Ever says they’re having “delivery” for dinner — they may not be talking about a take-out restaurant.
June 16th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Spewww…don’t forget that eating the placenta is what some of our four-legged friends do. Hence, it is NATURAL, making it mandatory for the BPE. Of course, rabies is also natural….
June 16th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
I have heard about people burying it in their backyard (which in theory might be sentimental but I still find gross) but I’ve never heard of people eating it. I’m sorry but that is revolting.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little!
June 16th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I’ll be dealing with a lot of Placentas soon since I’m in my pediatric rotation. Hopefully I can borrow someones to eat
June 17th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Yummm! You forgot the companies that you can send your placenta to…they will powder it and encapsulate it and send it back to you as a nutritional supplement. Apparently, it increases your Super Mommy Powers tenfold.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Busted!! After 40 entries detailing the exploits of the Best Parents Ever (or yuppies as we quaintly called them in the 1980s – oh what an innnocent time) Number 41 of the blog got me – we did that – buried the placenta of baby number three in the back yard. We didn’t plant a rose bush or anything, but I bet to this day (nealy 12 years later) you could still grow a kickass pumkin on that spot.
See my post under Parenting in the forum for the exact location of the sac that fed my baby in utero.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Hmm.. I’m 7 months pregnant. Can I sell my placenta when I’m done, uh, delivering it?
Obviously I can’t sell the baby. So I have to find some sort of profit here. 😀
June 18th, 2008 at 2:27 am
ok, this is the first of your posts that i genuinely do not like. at all.
i freely admit having the intestinal strength of a drunk child on a merry-go-round, however.
we’re going to give our future baby’s placenta to hosea williams’ “feed the hungry and homeless” foodbank. otherwise, i fear parental suckdom.
June 18th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Nasty, you know I would not do it.
It makes Mike Tyson ear Biting look normal.
June 18th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Hey mac, BPEs do it, this blog is just reporting on it. We had to bury ours because our kid was born at home and it is considered medical waste. Besides, I just don’t wanna see a stray dog gnawing on that in the garbage can.
The merry go round goes faster and faster
June 19th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I just read about this recently on a moms site. Seriously?? Next thing you know these people are going to start eating their own crap and say it’s good for you. BTW this was posted on MY moms site who all think it is hilarious! 😀
June 20th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
[…] This blog and entry is hilarious. I am officially adding it to my list of favorites here. (Warning: the particular blog entry linked to is not for those with weak stomachs, or those who easily puke from laughing.) […]
June 20th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I have a book of scripts from the first few seasons of SNL (1975-1977). It features some skits that were censored, including a commercial for “Placenta Helper”:
Two pregnant women meet at a class reunion.
“By the way, are you planning to eat the placenta?”
“You mean the afterbirth?”
“That’s right! It’s nutritious, 100% natural, and now you have to watch your food budget more than ever! and there’s no cheaper meat than placenta!”
“But is there enough placenta to make a complete meal for me AND my husband?”
“Not if your husband has a hearty appetite like mine. And that’s why you need Placenta Helper!”
Cut to picture of box patterned after Hamburger Helper: “New! Placenta Romanoff! add to one placenta”
Life imitates art–I wonder if the ad would make the cut today.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:52 am
Okay! So I’m the WORST parent ever! I am due with baby #4 in 3 weeks, and my placenta from baby #3 is still in the freezer! Honestly I don’t think I ever intended to bury it like I told my midwife I would!!!
June 21st, 2008 at 8:59 pm
That is freaking hilarious!!! A sweater vest out of used tampons – the vampires would follow you everywhere!
June 21st, 2008 at 10:28 pm
I’m so busted on this. I too, had a homebirth and the placenta is considered medical waste, so it’s not like I could just throw it away. I kept it in my freezer for awhile before finally burying it.
I was a little sentimental about it I’ll admit. lol But I have didn’t entertain plans of consuming it either. I’m still the best parent ever though, even if I didn’t eat it!
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Wow, I just stopped by here and gross. Best parent ever? What parent in their right mind would do that? If what you say is true and people really do this, no wonder the world is as messed up as it is. I’m all for alternatives, but this is just unsanitary and disgusting.
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:44 pm
I tend to be superstitious and was always told about burying the placenta under a rose bush. As the rose grows and blossoms, so will your child. I’ll admit, I never even saw the placenta when my daughter was born, but I saved her belly button when it fell off so when I move somewhere I’m planning on staying permanently, I can bury it under a rose bush. My daughter just thinks I’m weird, lol.
July 15th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Using the placenta can really help women recover from the birth and pregnancy more quickly. Seriously! You don’t have to cook up placenta lasagna – you can easily dry it and make it into capsules. In our pill-popping culture, I’d rather take something natural that gives me a huge boost of energy and increases my milk supply over a pharmaceutical antidepressant that can potentially interfere with breastfeeding. And, it beats keeping it in the freezer for years!
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
I’m sorry, or maybe I’m not, but this is sick. What the hell is the point of the evolution of our society and human beings if we’re eating our innards, regardless of their function.
Eww man, ew. Seriously.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Ghost Dog- Hold up. You made it past books and wine? They got me early.
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:24 am
From where I come from, Singapore, It’s actually a common practice. After delivering your baby, the hospital will ask you if you want to keep the placenta and she may even suggest recipes on how to cook it.
Here’s an article from a local parenting mag that talks about one mummies experience cooking and eating her placenta…
http://sg.theasianparent.com/articles/recipe_for_placenta