We’re lounging outside Starbucks in the evening, nibbling on coffee cake, feet propped, glancing up every time a car roars past on the High Five. People walk in and out, unwinding or caffeinating for a night shift. Someone smokes. We sit for hours, marveling at the too-cool-for-August breeze, just two women talking.
About placentas. Loudly. “That thing is really strong!” my companion bellows as she mimes holding a placenta by the umbilical cord. Heads turn, but Brittany Wackowski just laughs. She’s a single mom and a self-proclaimed “birth enthusiast,” and right now she’s sipping a decaf drip and telling me about her rambunctious 2 ½-year-old, her weekend date and her secret ingredients for steaming a hefty, bloody female organ.
Wackowski is a certified placenta encapsulation specialist (CPES). She sums up her mouthful of a job description by extracting a small glass jar from her purse. Inside are about 100 vegetable capsules, filled with brownish powder – unassuming, and thankfully not in any way reminiscent of afterbirth. But that’s what Wackowski does: She makes the placenta consumable. And yes, her clients eat it.
They’re not crazy, however unappetizing it may sound. Most mammals consume their placentas, and various human cultures have engaged in placentophagy to a degree. Traditional Chinese medicine still dictates the use of human placenta in healing remedies, and CPESs like Wackowski borrow the Chinese methodology.
Inspired by Eastern traditions, Western moms are claiming ownership of what once was a fringe movement. Last year, New York Magazine published a controversial article (“The Placenta Cookbook”) that in equal parts horrified and enlightened readers with recipes for placenta smoothies and placenta jerky. In March, encapsulation made headlines when Mad Men’s January Jones casually announced her placenta consumption. As the trend gathers steam and media coverage, more encapsulation specialists emerge; every major city in the United States and almost every state has a small host of specialists serving celebrities and mainstream moms alike.
And no matter how much I want to gag or giggle, the rationale is, well, rational.
During the third trimester, the placenta functions as part of the endocrine system, pumping hormones such as the iron-rich corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) into the bloodstream. CRH reduces stress – handy during labor – but the placenta secretes so much CRH during the third trimester that scientists believe the hypothalamus stops producing it as a result. “When the mother loses the placenta,” Wackowski explains, “she not only loses the chemicals stored there, but she also loses the factory. It takes the hypothalamus about two weeks to reach pre-birth levels of hormone output.”
A lack of CRH correlates with stress, exhaustion and ultimately postpartum depression (PPD). So in those two weeks, moms can ingest their placenta – still teeming with CRH and other hormones – to fight fatigue and the baby blues.
Consuming the placenta also seems to increase lactation, lessen perinatal bleeding and help the body regain balance for a “calm, chill recovery,” as Wackowski puts it.
She prepares each placenta in the client’s home shortly after birth so that Mom can start replenishing her body before experiencing a drastic dip in hormones. For maximum effect, some moms like their placentas raw, but capsules look – and taste – much more appealing. The entire procedure costs $250.
Each placenta yields 100–200 capsules, most of which mothers consume within those first two weeks; however, if mom feels good and has capsules to spare, she can save them for relief during menopause. Some of Wackowski’s clients have even bequeathed their extra pills to their menopausal mothers or mothers-in-law.
I ask what her clients think about this steaming and dehydrating process happening right in front of them. “Most people think they’re going to be very freaked out,” she says. “But they are really fascinated. I think they surprise themselves with their level of interest.
“Oh, and it really doesn’t smell.”
Even Wackowski, an avid student of all things natal, was hesitant to begin encapsulating – so she plunged hands-first into another specialist’s placenta preparation to see the process. “I was nervous for sure,” she says, but her enthusiasm for birthing trumped the gross factor. “I thought to myself: If I’m going to be a doula or a midwife, I’m going to have to handle the placenta anyway … so why not?” Now she has her food handler’s license and a certification through Placenta Benefits, a Las Vegas-based organization dedicated to promoting placentophagy worldwide.
Wackowski’s livelihood depends on word of mouth, because CPESs cannot cite any concrete scientific evidence in favor of their services. Jodi Selander, founder of Placenta Benefits, is working with scientists at the University of Nevada Las Vegas on a study of human placentophagy, the first of its kind, and CPESs like Wackowski are eagerly awaiting the results.
In the meantime, the burden of proof lies with the moms.
When she first heard about placenta consumption, Logan Christiansen balked. “I didn’t really want to eat a chunk of raw placenta,” she explains – and who can blame her? But then the chemistry teacher and Arlington mom of three met Wackowski and learned about the encapsulation method.
Christiansen hoped consuming her placenta after her fourth birth would ease postnatal problems she’d experienced during her first three, such as anemia and PPD.
And it worked. Compared with the first three births, Christiansen reports that she was less anemic after her fourth. She also claims her bleeding slowed and the placenta capsules led to fewer bouts of the baby blues. When I asked her if she would recommend placenta encapsulation, she didn’t even pause. “Definitely!”
Lactation consultant Linda Worzer receives similar feedback from her clients. “I hear over and over that they feel it helps increase milk supply,” she says.
Even so, Worzer does not outright endorse placenta encapsulation, as she, too, awaits solid scientific proof – and she is well aware of the power of placebo. But the Richardson-based birthing expert will not be surprised if the studies prove Wackowski right. “The body is so economical,” Worzer says, “and the placenta is the only disposable organ. Perhaps there is a better use for it that we’re missing.”
The lack of scientific proof can make it difficult for CPESs to do their jobs. Not all hospitals release the placenta to the mother; they see it as biomedical waste to be disposed of in a medical environment. At some hospitals, moms have to navigate the chaplain, the morgue and a funeral home just to claim their own afterbirth. If you’re considering encapsulation, Wackowski recommends thorough research, including contacting the hospital for a written guarantee that you’ll have control of the placenta.
She and other CPESs plan to lobby reluctant hospitals through the legal process, but that will take a great deal of organization. For now, Wackowski aims to correct the popular assumptions surrounding her work. “The reactions are so terrible and ignorant,” she says.
Many consider the placenta a lifeless sac of flesh, and the release procedures at some hospitals only further this view. Other cultures bury the placenta reverently, as you would a departed relative, but the burial process includes a tree planting ceremony to emphasize life, rather than death.
So the placenta has a nickname: “Tree of Life,” a moniker that stems from the branchlike pattern of the veins and umbilical cord and the life-giving properties that mothers attach to it. This is the image of the placenta that Wackowski wants to promote: not an icky dead organ, but a powerful rejuvenator manufactured by moms themselves.
Her clients can attest to the efficacy of the placenta, and Wackowski hopes they will continue to rave about its benefits so that encapsulation doesn’t fade like other trends. “The best thing we can do is to talk about our experiences,” she says. “Things won’t change unless we do.”
Sources: Placenta Benefits (placentabenefits.info), National Institutes of Health (nih.gov)
