Homebirth - placenta?

[nellyonthetelly]

Hi all! just got reminded by previous message about the placenta... think I was too drugged up first time even remember delivering it - now I'm going for a homebirth, I suggest to my DH the other day that we bury the placenta in the garden... something I think is done in different cultures... he was horrified! Its not like I said we'll have it for tea! Anyone got plans for their placenta? Love to hear about it. Ta

No, finished with making babies! But....my dad buried my placenta in the garden apparently. He was really annoyed because there was deep snow and the ground was like iron. I don't think we are from a different culture - Anglo Saxon and from Leicester!

Have heard it is quite common to bury the placenta in your garden-more common than eating it anyway. Apparently if you plant something on top of it, it will grow realy well.

My Dad burned mine (I was born at home). I said "coo how romantic". He said "not very, not on a rainy January day". He couldn't get the bonfire to light until he doused it in petrol.

This was some years ago obviously (ahem) so I guess the midwife thought it should be incinerated, like it would have been in the hospital.

I was absolutely adamant that I was going to eat mine. No idea why, particularly given that I've been a strict vegetarian for twenty years, but all through the later stages of my pregnancy I knew that was what I wanted to do. I'd even looked up recipes on the internet. Then I almost had my dream home-birth ruined by a retained placenta that refused to come away from the uterus for nearly two hours, didn't respond to a syntowhatsitsname injection and only deigned to put in an appearance when I had a hall full of paramedics peering at me around the dining-room door, at which point I went off it a bit and let the midwife take it away. I kind of regret it now, though - wish I'd at least buried it and planted a special tree over it or something

Spider, that's hilarious - really tickled me. The idea of eating a placenta and looking forward to it for 3 months, and then getting the hump with it when it wouldn't put in an appearance! Very Mighty Boosh - can you imagine having these conversations with men? They would think we're potty.

Still chortling.