A recent paper by neuroscientists at the University of Buffalo
and Buffalo State College asked why the practice of
placentophagia – the ingestion of components of the placenta or
afterbirth – was not more widely practiced among humans. After
all, it’s common practice among many other eutherian or
placental mammals, where it’s believed to provide significant
nutritional or health benefits to the mother. Why not human
mothers, too? The scientists weren’t advocating the practice,
only asking questions. Others, though, are already in the act.
On the Internet, you can find businesses marketing human
placentophagia for new mothers as a kind of postnatal health
benefit. Typically, they offer to retrieve, process and
encapsulate bits of the afterbirth – placenta-in-a-pill.
Occasionally, the idea gets a boost from a celebrity endorser.
In March, for example, the actress January Jones touted
encapsulated placenta as her way to re-energize after giving
birth. Dr. Douglas Woelkers is an associate clinical professor
in th