do people eat afterbirth?

Answer 1

Perhaps we should not be repulsed by this . Animals always do . It contains vitamins and Hormones that help the female produce milk and protect the infant and herself from Infection. Parraled with this the fiding that a child fed on natural mothers milk has ess health problems in later life , Physicaly, emotional and less weight growth and heart problems , less Diabettes ,etc the list is endless.
So Dont be repulsed or shocked . after the intervention of western culture breast feeding became ''Primative '' yet it is by far the best for the infant . particulary where water sources are poluted

Answer 2

The issue of eating the placenta - the afterbirth delivered from a mother following the birth of a baby - has been sparked again by front-page reports that Hollywood star Tom Cruise had been planning to eat the placenta when his fiancee gave birth.

Although in an interview with a US television news network, Cruise denied such a suggestion.

Young wives' tale

But there has been a longstanding belief among some new mothers that eating the placenta can yield benefits.


WHO, WHAT, WHY?

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One supposed reason is that it can reduce the incidence of post-natal depression. It has also been claimed to have nutritional properties needed by women after childbirth.

But consultant obstetrician Maggie Blott dismisses the post-natal depression theory. In fact, says Dr Blott, a spokeswoman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, there's no medical justification at all.

"Animals eat their placenta to get nutrition - but when people are already well-nourished, there is no benefit, there is no reason to do it," she says.

'Placentophagia'

In two decades of medical practice, she says only a handful of women have taken home their placenta to eat, while others have used them in symbolic garden burials.


In Hawaii, there has been a custom to plant the placenta with a tree

If the most usual way of treating the placenta in the West is to incinerate it, there are other cultures in which it has a special place in rituals following a birth.

In Hawaii, there have been legal moves in recent weeks to give parents the right to take home a placenta from hospital - because of a native Hawaiian belief that the placenta is part of the child.

There is a Hawaiian tradition that the placenta should be planted with a tree, which would then grow alongside the child - and parents have been angered when hospitals have obstructed them from taking the placenta.

If "placentophagia" - the practice of eating the placenta - remains a minority activity, there have been other applications.

How about placenta art? Pregnancy websites have some handy hints for mothers-to-be about how they could use their placenta in making prints, using the placenta to make patterns on paper.

"Many parents have found this to be a fun activity as well as giving them a very unique, artistic keepsake of their pregnancy," suggests one of these online parenting guides.



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Answer 3

In many cultures in Africa and South America it's perfectly natural to eat afterbirth, after all it's full of nutrients

Answer 4

I'm sure we do. I think it's used in many medicines.