Encapsulating your placenta...?

dkudo

I have very recently, for the first time ever, read about placenta encapsulation. Apparently this is basically what it sounds like, having your placenta made into pills. There are supposed to be a number of benefits to doing this, including eliminating baby blues. This seemed a little weird to me at first, but I am a pretty open-minded person. I think I would try it. As long as it is a pill, and there is no tasting or chewing involved. LOL. Has anyone else heard of this or tried it? Did it noticeably benefit you?

GoldenPeaches

I looked into it a lot when I was pregnant but I couldn't fathom spending 200 dollars on it. Now I am mad at myself for cheaping out since it could have helped my issues. I definitely regret not getting it done or doing it myself.

Next time I am doing it, 100%.

gy86

Non-western cultures have longstanding traditions of ingesting the placenta in some form after birth.  It is supposed to assist in restoring the postpartum hormonal balance which has been thought to aid breastmilk production, increase energy levels, and ease postpartum depression. 

Where I live, students who are learning how to encapsulate placentas (typically midwives, doulas, or other birth advocates) are required to do five free ones as a service to the community before they start charging for their own services.  So I got mine done for free.  I didn't really wind up taking them though... immediately after the birth, I didn't really suffer from energy or emotional issues. 

Honestly, I feel worse now at 5 months postpartum than I did right after baby was born.  There isn't a day that goes by where I don't catastrophize into the future and wonder how on earth I'm going to give this child a chance at a good life, or wonder where my own life would have gone had I not chosen to keep the baby, or the implications of me being an unmarried working parent with her kid in daycare all the time, and so on and so forth.  I've attributed most of those thoughts to my high internal standards and being prone to perfectionism as well as just the daily wear after you've been back to work for 3 months without a break. 

I should have kept the capsules though, because they can be frozen and used later for times of crisis, PMS, or even menopause.

ashleyhuney

I did it with my last delivery, and will do it again if we have another child. My DS was a traumatic c/s and I was in pain and just plain not doing well for a long time after that, so it's really hard to compare. DD was a med free VBAC - and I experienced the "birth euphoria" for the first time. I took the capsules until they ran out, a few months, and really just felt fantastic the entire time. A few weeks later I felt my emotions settling back into normal. Night and day, I am quite sure that the placenta encapsulation helped regulate me. My doula actually gave us directions and empty capsules and my DH (bless his farm boy roots) did it without a problem and it was free.