The placenta

[YouWerePrettyIWasLonely]

My niece is training to be a midwife and she was talking about the placenta last night. I never realised what a magnificent organ it is and that women's bodies make it from scratch. This amazing system of sustainability.

Women are just amazing.

@LilacIris 💐

I love that fact too Vivarium that I'm carry around tiny physical reminders of my sons

I remember looking at my placenta first time round and thinking it looked like coral. I don't think I saw my second placenta.

Lovely thread, I'm currently pregnant and pretty amazed by it all. Will definitely try and look at the placenta afterwards now.

I was so impressed that I'll make every cell in my babies body, I had a look to see how long cells last and apparently (I'm no biologist, just googled so hope this right) some survive for ages. I love the idea that my current heart muscles were made by my mother:

Brain cells: 200+ years?

Eye lens cells: Lifetime

Egg cells: 50 years

Heart muscle cells: 40 years

@Fnib

Another one for my ever increasing wish list *@YouSetTheTone* Thank you 😊

I hope you like it! I’m finding it so interesting. In fact I wrote a long-ish post and lost it!

I didn’t really admire the placenta I delivered with my first baby but by the time I gave birth to my third I was much more aware of the awesomeness of placentas and had a good chat about it with the midwives! Agree with a pp that it should be standard procedure a bit more to tell women about what they are, why they’re so clever and beautiful and allow us to examine/ celebrate them rather than treat them as ‘mess’ to be hidden. Of course, not everyone wants to look but on the whole we’re taught that so much that our bodies and their products are negative- ‘smelly period blood’ etc - that I do think the language and narrative should become more positive, more celebratory and more nurturing wherever possible. Hurrah for placentas!

It really is amazing. I didn't really realise until I had my first. With my second, I asked if I could look at it and then stared for a while I did not keep it though

I was off my face on drugs by the time I gave birth to my twins, so unfortunately forgot to look at their placentas. IIRC, each placenta weighed basically the same as each baby, so my giant pregnant belly was 50% baby and 50% placenta

Possibly the most unusual and unexpected compliment I've ever had was as I was just basking in the glow of newly born DD, the mI'd wife held my placenta up to the light and said "this is a wonderful placenta, one of the best I've ever seen!"

I did feel quite pleased as odd as it seemed.

I’m midwives do something similar (no mention was ever made by either of the midwives at my 2 births) but working on the stud farm it was normal practice to gather up the placenta after the mare had passed it then take it outside and spread it out in the floor to check there were no retained parts. A horse placenta is bloody massive, but similarly impressive!

@Tocktickclick

I'm not sure anyone is saying that 'they' are particularly clever. Simply that the body itself is an amazing thing. But you carry on being unimpressed missbarbary

It always amazes me that we can grow babies complete with bones, skin, brains, loads of organs, from scratch. How clever are we!

No it is not clever. Even the most despicable and useless mother around like the one recently convicted of leaving her baby to starve to death when she partied for 6 days can do this amazing thing.

I think the gases inhaled and consequent problems are different. Placental problems related to smoking are due to the vasoconstriction effects of nicotine. A busy road may well cause breathing problems to the mother like exacerbating asthma and indeed to the child after it is born. I don't know for sure but I would think the placental barrier effect would protect the fetus in utero unless the mother's breathing was affected so significantly as to impact blood gas exchange.

@FannyCann - thank you for the explanation.

Agree with a pp that it should be standard procedure a bit more to tell women about what they are, why they’re so clever and beautiful and allow us to examine/ celebrate them rather than treat them as ‘mess’ to be hidden

Yes, absolutely. I took my daughter's home from hospital - it came in a bucket with quite impressive biohazard stickers all over it.

And, speaking of eyes:

'Amniotic membrane is important for reconstructive surgery. It can be used as a graft and as a dressing. It is particularly useful in ophthalmology for eye reconstruction surgery.'

And congratulations EdgeOfACoin and Sexnotgender!

Thank you, @yourhairiswinterfire

"No it is not clever. Even the most despicable and useless mother around like the one recently convicted of leaving her baby to starve to death when she partied for 6 days can do this amazing thing."

And yet a male has never managed to do it. When women are embarrassed by their postpartum body, it's a wonderful thing to remember how amazing their body really is.

There are many amazing things in biology. I solely breastfed - I love looking at photos of my son having his first taste of food and realising that I made every bit of him up to that point, for over a year. I loved watching him use his tiny hands as a toddler, more dexterous each day, and being amazed that this tiny thing could do such delicate things. I remember being amazed that he immediately knew how to breastfeed - I felt relieved that even though I wasn't sure what I was doing, he did. None of those things make me or him special, but the human body is amazing.

@MissBarbary its more of a generalised how clever the female body is to do this and yes we should be amazed and in awe of it. I started this thread to just spread some celebration of something that's thought of as gross so if you don't mind could you please leave your negativity and deliberate downplaying somewhere else.

Agreed! I as a female still can't contemplate that I made a male child.
Bizarre and amazing

39 weeks pregnant tomorrow and weirdly looking forward to seeing the placenta again. I really enjoyed checking out the one from my DD. It's an incredible organ!

@drumst1ck

39 weeks pregnant tomorrow and weirdly looking forward to seeing the placenta again. I really enjoyed checking out the one from my DD. It's an incredible organ!

Hey due date buddy!

Oh actually I’m a day ahead of you, I’m 39 weeks today.

The placenta is genetically part of the baby, isn't it? Mothers provide the nutrients and oxygen which the foetus uses to build itself, following the instructions in its chromosomes/genes. Maybe clever isn't the right word for what the mother does, as it implies some sort of conscious control of the process. Amazing, yes. I remember my male GP telling me years ago when I had infertility problems that the female reproductive system was so complicated that it was a wonder it ever worked at all.

@LilacIris same here. I'm sorry for your loss

The placenta is genetically part of the baby, isn't it?

Yes, that's true, I think. The original ball of cells splits into what will become the baby and what will become the placenta.

The placenta is half mother and half father, I believe. So yes, sort of part of the baby.

@Sexnotgender hi! Hope you aren't as fed up as I am!

[quote drumst1ck]@Sexnotgender hi! Hope you aren't as fed up as I am! [/quote]
I’m pretty fed up! I swing between treasuring the time when it’s just “us” and being desperate to meet her.

I had an early reassurance scan at 7 weeks and found it mind-blowing that the sonographer could actually tell what ovary the egg had come from (something to do with how the corpus luteum looked I believe). I had never realised that they could pin point it to that extent.