What did you do, if anything, with your placenta after your birth(s)?
My first two, I didn't do anything other than ask to see it after the births. With my third child, I told my midwife that I wanted to take it home with me from the hospital. She was surprised by my request, but said she would look into the rules and regulations regarding taking the placenta home, since it's considered biohazardous waste.
After an interesting visit by a hospital representative, who asked my directly what I was planning to do with the placenta (is it really their business? It was something that came out of MY body, so I felt like I owned it still). Anyhow, to avoid fighting with the hospital system, I told them that I was planning to make prints with the placenta and some paint at home, and then we were going to bury the placenta in her grandmother's backyard and probably plant a tree on top of it.
After a little bit of time, the person came back with a release form for me to sign. They also told me that since it was a biohazard, it would need to be soaked in formaldehyde for 72 hours to kill off all organisms. Then they would rinse the formaldehyde off and put it in a labeled container for me to come back to the hospital to pick it up.
So, that's what we did.
Needless to say, by that time, the poor placenta was looking quite sad, and smelling something awful from the formaldehyde (blech!), so I quickly slapped some red paint on it (yes, red....irony anyone? Drain the blood out, then paint in blood red?? hehehe) and using gloves, I made four prints with it. The prints are actually pretty cool. They look like heart shaped trees from the placenta and cord. We then buried it on our daughter's grandparents property, after saying a few words of thanks for nourishing our baby for nine months.
Of course, you know this is leading up to a good post. I sure wish I could post details, but there was a situation regarding a placenta and who has the rights to it. Needless to say, the situation was made into such a big deal, when it really shouldn't have.
My opinion? You want your placenta, take it. What happens to it after I put it in the trash in your room..............well, what I don't see, I don't know about. Wink wink.
The hospital stance? It's a biohazard, and must be disposed of in the red biohazard trash, where it will later be incinerated. If you leave the hospital property with it, you are breaking a law. You will be arrested.
(Gag......I hate working for "the man" in situations like this.)
More of my opinion: like any other part of your body, it originated with you, and if you want to keep it, it's your right. Who am I to say that you may not keep a part of you?
If the placenta is a biohazard, then the baby is too, right? Well, at least until the baby is thoroughly sanitized and cleaned. How sanitary is using baby bath on a biohazard? Not very effective, I would imagine. So, if that placenta is a biohazard, so is the baby! (Tongue in cheek, you understand, right?)
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All I can think of is my genetics professor (Dr. Shields) and his work with mitochondrial DNA in the early years. This involved getting access to hundreds of placentas and grinding them up to harvest the mitochondria - yup they plopped those fresh placentas into an Oster blenders and pureed them up and then centrifuged to isolate the mitochondria (the shirring forces ripped the cells apart liberating the mitochondria).
Hundreds of women and their infants, perhaps many are readers on your blog, helped science understand mitochondrial DNA (the only DNA passed on exclusively maternally), all from the donation of their placenta. Pretty sure these days it would be a terrible trouble to get them, formaldehyde destroys DNA so it can not be used.
I just had monochorionic twins 7 weeks ago. After I gave birth my OB brought it over to me and very excitedly began to explain everything about it and how cool it was to have supported two babies for 7 months, and enthused about the direct split of the umbilical cords right in the middle. He offered to wrap it up for me to take home, but I was still a little disgruntled by it. It had caused such a scary and complicated pregnancy, and I told him no. I kind of regret it now though, because for one placenta to do the job of 2 for even 7 months really is amazing!
Normally, as long as we're not sending the placenta to pathology, it just gets tossed as is in the red-bag biohazard trash, which is then incinerated.
We used to save for 24 hours in the fridge just in case a babe needed to be sent out to the Children's hospital...for genetics...
I actually had a post on this earlier in July... :)
http://callmenurse.blogspot.com/2010/06/eating-placenta_26.html
Good post. I think any woman should be able to take it home with them and do whatever they please with it - without restriction.....and every hospital that I have ever worked in would allow it.
Interestingly enough...in the book I am going to be giving away this wk to whomever wants it..."Choosing to Smile"...the author was allowed to take possesion of her leg after it was amputated...surely a placenta is a minute thing next to a leg...
I was planning to plant my younger son's placenta under a tree. He was a homebirth so me keeping the placenta didn't pose any issues, except my midwife told me that if we ended up not planting it we needed to drop it off at their office since it's considered a biohazard.
I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that the thing's still in my freezer... especially since my youngest is turning eight this year.
Oops?
I've never understood this placenta-fixation, but different strokes, etc.
I had my children so long ago, we kept all the placentas from delivered patients in a giant freezer and a pharmaceutical company took them away, to extract hormones. This was before genetic engineering that produced synthetic hormones.
As to being a biohazard, it is exactly the same as any blood product. Your baby isn't a hazard as long as he isn't bleeding
I was at a hospital birth recently where the mom chose to keep her placenta. She had to have a funeral home rep come pick it up and then go get it from the funeral home.
I gave birth at the hospital in a local hippy-town so taking the placenta home was no big deal. I was planning on having it dried and encapsulated, but pathology reports said I had severe acute chorioamnionitis so I figured I should not eat it. This broke my heart. I had a shitty birth experience (actually, the birth of my son was the most terrifying, painful experience of my life and I still have flashbacks and emotional reactions about it. PTSD?) and I felt this was just another blow. It sat in our freezer for about 7 months when we buried it underneath the locust tree in our front yard.
My first placenta was donated to local search and rescue's dog training program. But with my second, who was born at home without an attending midwife, I placed it in the fridge for 48 hours before using it and some of the left over blood for prints. Its living in our freezer until we move somewhere more permanent. Then I will thaw it, re-print with paint and bury it with a tree.
I know that here on the west coast it is very easy to take your placenta home. At some hospitals its almost assumed. You just have to provide an ice box for it.
1st birth - I told my midwife to get rid of it.
2nd birth - I'd learned about placenta medicine, so I did that - first in a smoothie and then the rest encapsulated. I cannot even begin to tell you how much it helped with emotions, energy, and afterpains. I will never again birth without it. If you'd like details, you can go to my blog and search "placenta". I know it's countercultural, but it works!
Telling a mother that she cannot take her placenta (or that she has to soak it in formaldehyde - *gag!*) is an abuse of human rights. The placenta belongs to the mother. Good for you for working against the system. :)
First (hospital) - took a quick look, declared it looked like a liver, and sent it away.
Second (hospital) - took a good look, had my husband take a picture of it so I could look at it again later in better detail, sent it away.
This time (planned homebirth) - I plan to have it dried and encapsulated. I had PPD after my first, was fine after my second, who knows this time. If I don't need it right away, I understand it can be helpful to increase milk production as well as to help with menopause. If for some reason that isn't possible, I still have our miscarried baby and itty-kidney-bean-sized placenta in the freezer, waiting to be buried in land we own... I can bury this placenta with her.
I had three babies at home. We buried the placenta in the backyard and planted something on top of it.
When I went a week overdue with baby #1, I was hit hard with the nesting instinct and kept pestering my husband to dig a hole in the backyard so we could bury the placenta without delay. Humoring me, he went ahead and dug.
Bad idea. (Hole in ground) + (pregnant) + (overdue) = (nightmares about stillbirth.)
I donated mine to medical research.....at least that what they told me when they asked me for my placentas. Smiles
I've only ever had 1 mom ask for her's and we put it in a placenta bucket and a red bag then handed it to her...
I've also had one family ask to take home their stillborn, then required a release form and a cooler but it wasn't a big deal.
My doctor was all too eager to show me the placenta after my precipitous birth but he failed to inform me that he was sending it to pathology because there was an infarcted area. So I had to pay and extra 500$ for what?! My daughter was born healthy at 40 weeks- what would they have learned from pathology? when I called pathology they assumed that I had a c-section since I guess that was the majority of placentas that they seek *grumble grumble* I guess I could have saved some money by asking to take it home!
I have no idea what happened to mine after #1. I saw it when I was still in the OR, touched it briefly, and then it was sent (I assume) to pathology. With #2 (home vbac turned cbac) my midwife accompanied me to the hospital and stayed until I was settled in my post partum room. My placenta was in a white bucket with my name on it, between my legs, from the moment it was delivered, throughout my stay in recovery, and until my midwife took it home for me that morning. I picked it up from her a week later and encapsulated it myself.
Have you contacted Jodi Selander with Placenta Benefits? She's on FB, has a website, and has fought for (and won) placentas for women in the very recent past.
Good luck to the Mama in obtaining what is rightfully hers!
How CRAZY is it that I just so happened to post this at the exact same time yesterday? We must have some kind of Vulcan/birth junkie mind meld going here.
What a hassle that was for you! So sorry you had to deal with that. Do you get many requests from patients for this nowadays?
We kept it in our freezer for a couple weeks until we decided what to do with it. We ended up burying it in the front yard with a fox tail palm planted over it.
I bought a lovely Japanese Maple with my best friend and we buried our placentas together. My sons, and her daughters. We now take a picture of them every year standing in front of the tree. I had to keep my placenta in the freezer for a year until her daughter was born. I just simply wrapped it in a large freezer bag, and labeled it "DO NOT EAT!" That was for my Dh's benefit.
We just left it with the midwife in the birth house. We took a neat photo, though, but as we don't own land, we didn't see any use to fill the freezer with it (there wouldn't have been any more space there). Postpartum time was - like the pregnancy - without any trouble at all, so there were no regrets. It was an impressive, large thing, though!
We took ours home and put it in the freezer for a few months. Then we buried it in a nature area under a native tree sapling provided by the local govt for this purpose -they're trying to reforest the area, so it killed two birds with one stone.
We very rarely get requests for parents to keep their placenta, or do take pictures/make prints with them.
Needless to say, the entire situation seemed to really throw everyone for a loop.
I didn't keep my first one but I want to next time around - probably encapsulate. PPD was so awful that I would do anything that might be helpful, even if its only based on anecdotal accounts. I think that's so sad - the formaldehyde thing :( I guess that's one more reason to try to avoid hospital birth.
I'm donating it to a search and rescue dog training team. Some of their people are paramedics and will come get it when I call them from the hospital when it's ready for them.
I always wanted to see our placentas, however I wasn't brave enough to even ask. I'm already known for being weird so I didn't want to make the situation worse especially since OB hates my friggin guts after "starving my baby" with hyperemesis. B*stards! lol Sorry for the swearing. I've got a little PTSD from my pregnancy experience still.
It's a shame, really, not to see even one of three of them.
A few weeks before I had my baby I read an article that said placenta was used in the manufacture of some cosmetics, and that really grossed me out. I asked my doctor what they did to dispose of placentas, and he said they were discarded as medical waste.
After reading that article, it's strange to say but I felt too concerned about the placenta to have it be discarded, so I asked whether I could keep it for "personal/religious reasons" (the proper respect for the placenta is very important in Maori culture, so I figured that's what I would claim if anyone asked further questions). No one bothered me about it further, though.
They sent it to pathology to be inspected, and a nurse brought it in a container to my room. My spouse put it in the car (it was winter) because the nurse was very upset that I did not take it out of my room within the first three minutes of having it, but other than that, I had no problems (that nurse was unfriendly, to say the least).
It's in my freezer right now, and I plan to plant it under a tree- I just haven't done so yet because I recently moved, and I wanted to bury it at my new residence.
That's it, no formaldehyde, no funeral home, no issues. I gave birth in a very well known women's hospital, and I think that made a difference.
Oh goodness, I was quite the pioneer for "placental rights" where I live!!
So before I became pregnant with my last baby, I was well-educated on the benefits on placental encapsulation and was 100% sure I wanted to do it. (Had horrible PPD after my previous birth.) I officially hired the 1 certified encapsulator in my area. Then I informed my very low-intervention OB about, with hesistance. (Was this the "one" thing about me that was going to push him over the edge to NOT support me anymore??? Would he now think I was a TOTAL crunchy nutjob?!) Well, turns out, he was not only supportive, but very intrigued about the benefits of it. He was concerned, though, about what the hospital's perspective would be.
I contacted the director of perinatal ed about a month before I was due. She's well-known in the birth community for being an advocate for patient rights. She also was intrigued and wanted to help me to get my placenta released after my birth. She asked around several different depts and eventually I was contacted by risk management about it. They also wanted to support my wishes, but were a little hesitant b/c this was all so new to them.
After a couple weeks of communication via phone with risk management, they put together a customized release form for me, so that my placenta would be released to me regardless of whether I gave birth vaginally or by cesarean. (I did end up having a cesarean birth.)
One thing that I made absolutely clear was that my placenta was NOT to be tampered with in any way after the birth. I brought my own containers and cooler from home and the instructions were that after initial inspection, my placenta was to be put directly into my container. I did not want to risk formaldehyde being put on it, or it being sent to pathology.
One funny side note: During all the back and forth phone calls w/risk management, I got a call from my OB. Turns out risk management contacted him and wanted him to comment on the current condition of my placenta...while I was still pregnant!!! He was like, "Um, well I can't really comment on it until I SEE it!" He and I had a good laugh.
The procedure of having my placenta released to me went as smooth as glass. After the placenta delivered, my OB handed it right over to an OR nurse who was ready with my container. She placed it in the cooler on ice and my doula transported it with me to recovery. Then the encapsulator I'd hired came to hospital and picked it up a few hourse later.
And evidently i created quite a stir on L&D and PP. My doula overheard my OB talking to another doc about placenta encapsulation (in a positive way). And I had several PP nurses (who weren't my nurses) come to see me b/c they'd heard about "the patient who was going to eat her placenta."
As for my PP experience? It was nothing short of amazing. A complete, night and day difference from my PP experience with my 1st birth. I felt a difference in my mood within hours of taking my first dosage. I recommend that all mothers-to-be at least consider having their placenta encapsulated, esp if they have a history of depression (even if it wasn't PPD). My OB was so impressed with the outcome that he now recommends it to other moms!
In terms of the legality and "biohazardous waste" issues: the placenta is considered a product of conception and therefore is the property of the mother. In court cases where a hospital is refusing to release a placenta to a mother, the mothers have always won. :)
I have no desire to plant, eat or touch/see the placenta. It's an amazing organ, no doubt about it. I just don't need to keep it or do anything with it.
I donated mine to search and rescue dog training as well. they provided me with a cooler. the hospital insisted that it stay in a red "biohazard" bag until they came to pick it up, but otherwise did not hassle me.
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