I always knew i wanted to do something with my placenta after i gave birth and the initial plan was to have it dehydrated and turned into pills. I'd contacted a local lady who could do this and asked for prices / availability etc. I was pretty shocked at how expensive it was and thought i might get her to make me some smoothies instead, although this was still pretty pricey. One week later Eve arrived (11 days before her due date) and i hadn't put a plan in place so we needed to think quickly. Normally hospitals put your placenta in with other medical waste unless you ask them otherwise. We weren't sure what we were going to do but we asked them to put it in the fridge for us so we could take it home. 5 hours after Eve popped out we were heading home in a taxi with my placenta in a carrier bag. it went in the fridge at our house whilst we googled how to prepare it ourselves.
True love is, preparing your girlfriends placenta
The next day with the help of a few blogs and YouTube videos like this one from Indie Birth, Ed and my Mum prepared my placenta ready to make smoothies.
I had one smoothie that day with the fresh raw placenta and we chopped the rest into cubes and stored in the freezer. i then had a smoothie a day for the next week.
Freezer bags at the ready
The prep was pretty simple (i say as i watched from the sofa) but seriously, if you have a partner, friend, parent that isn't too squeamish and is willingly to help out, then its definitely something you can do yourself at home, rather than sending it to someone else to do for you.
Yummers - one day post birth, enjoying my first smoothie
I'm not going to go into all the benefits of eating your placenta here as there are hundreds of blogs and pieces of information out there on the web that can be googled, this is just a little note to let people know that we did it ourselves, it was super easy and it actually felt really lovely to know that we did it on our own, without having to get someone to take it away and bring it back to us. It was like a little post birth family ritual, that sealed and closed my pregnancy and prepared and strengthened my body for motherhood.
Did you do anything with your placenta?
Let me know if this has inspired you to prepare yours yourself? I've also seen some good spag bol and lasagne recipes... not sure i'd be able to go the route of cooking it though. Making a smoothie with bananas, berries and coconut water was enough for me :)
Love Lauranza x