More and more women are being tempted by the idea of eating their placenta after giving birth. For Kourtney Kardashian, this practice even helped her reduce the risk of baby blues. A practice not recommended by specialists.
For several years, many women report eating their placenta after giving birth. A practice that has become trendy, particularly in the United States, the United Kingdom, and even in France. Recently, on social networks, it was Kourtney Kardashian who caused controversy by publishing photos of her capsules, made from her placenta. Like her sister Kim and other celebrities like Mad Men actress January Jones, the reality star simply chose to eat her placenta. According to her, it helped improve her mood, balance her hormones and reduce the risk of baby blues or postpartum depression. But American experts are warning young mothers who might be tempted to follow this “trend”, recalling that no study demonstrates the benefits of such a practice.
“In certain developing countries, countries which are sometimes extremely poor, women have no access to anything other than their placenta, which they are forced to cook. In Europe and North America, some people said that if they did it, it was because it was very good for their health. explains Anna Roy. But this is a preconceived idea, she insists, since it is a filtration organ. “This is completely false. It is true that the placenta is very rich in iron in particular, but it also contains all the bad substances, chemical pollutants, toxins, viruses, etc. In addition, the placenta, unlike the liver, does not eliminate these products. the midwife tells us.
In other cases, some mothers decide to keep the placenta for cultural and traditional reasons. “For example, in Africa, families really like to bury it at the foot of a fruit treebecause they see him as a part of the baby, which is the case, so they feel they owe him respect, and want to keep this memory which will nourish the tree. I don’t see any problem with it, but it’s not possible in France.”, Anna Roy tells us. On this subject in fact, French law is very clear: the placenta, like all other human waste, cannot be recovered by the patient. Anna Roy explains that “medical teams risk a prison sentence if they let a woman leave with her placenta, whatever the reason. So, unanimously, no one does it in the hospital anymore, and the trend has calmed down a little. But it remains a little in home births. Normally, the midwife has to take the placenta and put it in the infectious waste, but some don’t do it.”