Life Today

Tonight at our birth class we spent a good amount of time talking about placenta. It's a wildly fascinating topic that I'm sure everyone is just dying to know more about! Right? Okay maybe not, but I like to process by sharing.

First lets review what we learned many moons ago in high school health class. Placenta is basically how a baby gets nutrients from the mother. It attaches to the umbilical cord which transfers oxygen, blood, and nutrients to the baby and takes away waste. It's full of protein, blood, iron, hormones and nutrients.

So, who cares? Well, the main topic of our conversation in class was what do you do with it?

There are several options. Most people just have it thrown away. Typically when you don't want it, it gets incinerated. Some save it and bury it in their garden. Some have it encapsulated. This is when it's dried out with very low heat, ground up into a powder, and put into pills. The road least traveled is to eat it. I think the most appealing way to do this (in spite of how incredibly unappealing this is) is to blend it into a smoothie.

After learning some of the benefits, I think we're leaning towards encapsulation. I know I sound crazy so bear with me. After you give birth, you are in a state where you have lost a lot of blood, you haven't had a square meal to keep your energy up for days and you're physically exhausted. Your body, which has been producing massive amounts of hormones and red blood cells (thus the need for iron), suddenly stops making hormones and blood, and goes into full on milk production mode. Guess where you can get this all back from? Yeah, the placenta.

In studies done of women who have chosen to ingest their placenta (either in a pill or otherwise), about 99% had no signs of post-partum depression, they had more energy, their ability to sleep was better than those who had not, and there were many other positive benefits. This has more information.

Considering how little I know about what is actually in the pills I take, I think I can handle taking a pill. I also think that it would be worth feeling as good as I can after the baby's born not just for me, but so that I can be a better mother for my baby. Our midwife also told us that some women save some of the pills for menopause which has helped them get through it much better. We got a bunch of business cards and information about encapsulation at our class and I'm going to research some options and decide who we'd like to have do this for us. The other concern is that it's another expense we have to find money for, but I feel like I can justify another $75-$130 when I think about how much money we'd have spent even by now going to a hospital instead of the birth center. I think I'll make a donation jar with information to set out at our baby shower.

Now that I've thoroughly grossed you all out, I have a completely different topic. We found out today that my mother-in-law had a stroke. Two days ago Paul got a call from his brother that their mom had been found unconscious and was taken to the hospital. They finally diagnosed the issue today. From the sound of it she seems to be okay, she's just unable to speak. Hopefully with some speech therapy and time she'll be able to talk again. We're all very worried about her, but there really isn't much we can do with them being so far away. Honestly there's not much we could do if they were close either.
Anyway, this has been a heavy issue in our house the last couple of days and we are just relieved to know that she's going to be okay.