Placenta Encapsulation

[SammiAndrews]

Hello,

I'm due to give birth in 3 weeks(!), please can anyone tell me of their experiences with placenta encapsulation?
Thank you x

Are you having a hospital or MLU birth?

Would they let you take it home- isn't it technically medical waste? I'm not sure my midwife would have popped mine in a bag for life for me.

I think it sounds like a waste of money to be honest- I know it's purported to reduce the risk of PND but there's suggestions that that is mainly down to placebo effect.

Worth bearing in mind that there's no regulation in the industry and there was a well reported case in the summer where a baby contracted a bacterial infection through mum's breastmilk after she ate capsules made with her placenta.

Just seems like a bit of a risk with no documented benefits.

I did it with my first and also having it done with my 2nd as well (due today!). I'm a big believer. I really genuinely think it probably saved me from PND last time. I am naturally prone to anxiety and have OCD (unrelated to pregnancy). I started to feel really anxious with really upsetting intrusive thoughts around 5 days pp. That's when I started to take my capsules and within about 5 days, I felt much better. I had loads of energy, much more so than friends who had babies at the same time. I'll never know of course if it would have been any different if I hadn't taken them, but certainly among my friends who did it one pregnancy and not the other, they noticed a real difference. There's obviously a reason pharmaceutical companies are falling over themselves to buy placentas that are discarded by hospitals (yes, that is sometimes what happens to them, even here in the UK, if you don't encapsulate them, the hospital owns them technically if you don't take it home with you and they can do what they want with them). There are lots of pharmaceutical products made from placentas and they are used in a lot of sports recovery products for elite athletes. That isn't coincidental. I figure if the pharmaceutical companies are that keen, then it's probably wise to take advantage of that myself rather than letting someone else do it with my placenta.

Obviously, there is a cost, but if you have the money to spend, I think it's worth it if you can afford it. If you don't want to spend that sort of money, then you can always save it and make smoothies yourself as long as you (or a doula or someone) is comfortable cutting it up for you and portioning it into smoothie packs to freeze. I'm doing this with a bit of it, but also having someone encapsulate it for me. But you can do it for almost free (just the cost of the fruit, etc. in the smoothies) if you want to. And yes, you absolutely are able to take your placenta home with you. It belongs to you. Obviously, the hospital does have some incentive to discourage you if they are selling them on, but that I think is happening less in the UK now because a few hospitals got in trouble for it. But it is yours and you can do what you want. You just need to tell them and bring an appropriate sterile container to put it in and either a cool bag with ice packs or have someone run it home to put in the fridge or freezer for you. I've done it twice now and midwives were quite happy with that and said it's pretty normal for them to do.

Also, for the record, in the case the pp mentions of a baby catching strep B from breast milk. There is no evidence of this. In this case, the breastmilk was tested and it was negative for strep b. Likely, it was a case of baby being insufficiently treated post-birth (possibly due to a drug resistant strain) or bacteria being spread from mum's vagina/hands via the nasal/oral route to baby. My dd tested positive after birth for MRSA colonisation. I also am colonised with MRSA (as are lots of people). But she didn't get it through breast milk or placenta capsules (I wasn't even taking them yet when she was tested). It's because mum's and babies share a lot of bugs in the early days.

I booked to have this done with my first born.
The company we used were amazing.
Unfortunately the birth didn’t go to plan (daughter pooed inside me) so my placenta was ruined and couldn’t be used.
Now 13 weeks pregnant and will be booking it again!

Any tips on best companies to use for placenta encapsulation please?

I kept some for encapsulating and the rest saved in a tincture for bad pms/menopause!