It's funny how having a baby can take you places you would have never considered before. For example, taking your placenta in capsule form. Never in a MILLION years would I have thought I would consider, let alone actually, ingest my placenta. But early in my pregnancy I read this article on a website I frequent, Offbeat Mama. I will give you three guess on the words that got my wheels turning. BREAST MILK. If there was even the smallest possibility that this would help my milk production, I was immediately on board.
Like the author, I couldn't fathom actually eating or drinking my placenta in a smoothie, BUT having it dried out, blended and put into capsules. That I could deal with. But how do you even go about finding someone to do that for you? There's not a lot of people anxious to talk about placentas and it's moments like this, you have to be grateful for the internet. Amazingly, there was a woman who does Placenta encapsulation in the UK and lived in the town over from me.
When Oscar was born, my placenta was put into a glass dish that we brought with us and Griff took it home to wash and place in the fridge till Lynnea could come and collect it. She was amazed at how large and healthy it looked and said it was one of the biggest she had seen. I have to say, Lynnea's enthusiasm made me feel even more like I was making the right choice. The woman obviously loves what she does.
So, how did taking my placenta work for me?
I feel like it helped. A lot. I felt like an emotional roller-coaster after having a difficult and long labor that ended in a cesarean. I needed to feel like me again and quick. I didn't want my surgery to prevent me from bonding with Oscar.
Lynnea had my capsules to me with 48 hours of handing my placenta over to her. My placenta made an astonishing 178 capsules! AMAZING. I started taking 1, 3 times daily and then started taking 2 caps twice daily. I had energy to get tasks done and take care of Oscar. I wanted to get out and enjoy the summer. My breast milk came in abundance and within a week Oscar was no longer needing formula supplements. And speaking for vanity's sake, I haven't lost hair like a lot of ladies do.
Would I have had the same outcome even if I hadn't taken my placenta? It's difficult to say. I will never be able to compare. I know people are constantly complimenting how well I am looking and how emotionally well I am for a "new mother". And I do feel good. Yeah, I have a ways to go to lose the baby weight, but hey, it's not a miracle pill.
I do know that I plan on taking my placenta for my next pregnancies. I am now down to my last hand full, and I'm at the point where I only take them when I feel like I need a bit of a "pick me up".
If you are interested here are links for the UK and US for encapsulating. I honestly can't say enough about how much I think it's helped and how fantastic I think it is. Questions? Comments?
3 comments:
I'm really glad you were able to do this. One of the biggest disappointments of O's delivery involved his placenta. It wasn't available to me for taking after all was said and done. Placenta eating; one more thing we never thought we'd do!
This was so great to read. I'm a placenta encapulator in Canada, and just love when people talk about how much of a benefit they think it was, and would do it again.
I also loved your encapsulator talked good things about your placenta, how awesome. My first ever was my biggest, and it was massive and so so healthy.
As a vegan, I don't think I could stomach it cooked, but encapsulated I could for sure!
I was actually really nervous about sharing this with people initially, but the better I felt, it just started to feel wrong not to share! Thank you for reading!
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