How to Eat Your Placenta

The placenta is believed to contain many nutrients that my be helpful to new mothers. Some of these nutrients are believed to ward off postpartum depression and increase the mother's milk supply.

If you are looking to eat your placenta, during pregnancy you need to do is find a certified placenta encapsulation specialist. While you can prepare your own placenta, it is probably best to leave it to those who have been train how to prepare it properly.

The placenta encapsulation specialist will explain what you need to do for both a home birth and a hospital birth. The process will be simple. Basically you will have to keep the placenta fresh and clean and put it in a plastic bag or container immediately and then refrigerate it or put it on ice.

The day of the delivery, contact the placenta encapsulation specialist for a home visit to prepare the placenta. In general they will be available within a day to come to your home. If you cannot have the placenta prepared within a day, freeze the placenta immediately. You may freeze the placenta for up to 6 months if the placenta is frozen properly.

The placenta encapsulator will clean, prepare, cook and dehydrate the placenta before it can be encapsulated. By law, all of this must be done at the home of the woman who delivered the placenta.

The placenta encapsulation specialist will give you instructions on how often to take the placenta capsules and how to freeze the placenta capsules for menopause.

While the FDA has not approved any health claims regarding consumption of the placenta, many individuals believe it has healing powers. The consumption of the placenta has been done for thousands of years and is still widely done in China, Mexico and other parts of the world.

Some placenta encapsulators specialize in encapsulating raw placenta. These specialists believe that eating a raw placenta will deliver more vitamins and nutrients than cooking the placenta.

Some women prefer to eat their placenta in a soup and both fresh and frozen placenta may be used. Many doulas, midwives and placenta encapsulators have a favorite placenta recipe they are happy to share. The doula, midwife or placenta encapsulator may even prepare the soup for you if you prefer.

As a safety precaution, never consume the placenta of another person to avoid the spread of bacteria and disease.