I suffered from depression during my third pregnancy. I knew in my heart that depression would carry over into my post partum period, and I was scared. A coworker whose opinion I respected encouraged me to look into placenta encapsulation.
WAIT. What?? Do what with my placenta? Ummmm, I don’t know, that sounds pretty…outlandish. I mean, I have made some questionable choices in my adult life, but eating my placenta might be the thing that makes my family decide once and for all that I’m crazy. Of course, I was intrigued.
I reached out to my local Facebook Mommy group, asking for moms who had their placentas encapsulated to share their experiences. I was blown away by how many moms had done it and felt that it made a huge difference in their recovery. I combed the internet searching for evidence and actual research on placenta encapsulation, but there is not much to be found. It’s a practice that has been around for hundreds of years, especially in older cultures and Traditional Chinese Medicine, and is growing in popularity in the United States. I had to rely on the stories from my Mommy group. Their enthusiastic recommendations sold me. I felt like I was making an investment in my postpartum recovery, so I set about convincing my tight-fisted husband that encapsulating my placenta would help stabilize the hormones that make me crazy after I give birth. He was willing to give it a try.
Once I signed the contract and paid the deposit, Carly, owner of Annapolis Area Doulas, sent me instructions on how to safely get my placenta home from the hospital. Immediately following my son’s birth, the hospital staff put my placenta in a lidded container, which my husband placed into the cooler we had brought and kept fresh ice on it until my mother took it to our home and put it in the refrigerator for us. Carly came to my home the day I was released from the hospital, wearing a shirt with her company’s logo and a white lab coat, and wheeling along some expensive-looking equipment. I had just given birth so of course my house, especially the kitchen, was a mess. Carly told me she would only need a small space of my tiny kitchen. She sanitized the area of the kitchen I told her to use, and began prepping my placenta. My older son, then 5, was very curious about what was going on in the kitchen, and I was not sure how or even whether to explain what Carly was doing. But Carly sweetly said, “I have 3 boys of my own, and I am very honest with them. I don’t mind explaining what I’m doing.” She proceeded to show my son the placenta, explaining that the delicate network of veins and arteries resemble a tree, which is why it is often referred to as “the tree of life.” She narrated every step of what she was doing, never bothered by the litany of questions and Minecraft stories my son was bombarding her with. Once she was done rinsing and steaming the placenta, she put it in her food-grade dehydrator, and offered me the “mother’s broth,” the water left from steaming the placenta. I declined, but I wish I hadn’t. The pills were so effective, I can only imagine what the broth would have done for me. Carly left the dehydrator on and came back the next evening to grind and encapsulate the placenta. She and my husband bonded over their excitement for the premiere of Game of Thrones that evening. She cleaned and sanitized her work area and gave me instructions on when and how to take my pills. I took the first dose right then.
If recovering from child birth is hard, recovering from child birth while having to take care of other children is insane. My support people and my placenta pills were what got me through that time. The difference in my recovery from my previous two was substantial. My energy levels were higher, I cried much less, I didn’t feel sad, and my infant was super happy about my breast milk production, which was noticeably more than it was with my first two babies. My husband started calling the pills my “Happy Pills.” If he noticed a change in my energy or my mood, he would remind me to take the pills. Their effect was immediate and evident. I started out taking two pills three times daily, and tapered the dose weekly over the next two months. I never hit that wall of exhaustion and sadness, that hormonal drop that women have soon after giving birth. I felt good. It was awesome. It was worth the cost, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
If you are at all curious about what placenta encapsulation is or what it can do for you, please fill out our contact form or email info@annapolisareadoulas.com. We promise not to be all salesy, but we are very passionate about the power of the placenta. It truly is the Tree of Life, for both mom and baby. We also a wanted to include a video of what the process looks like with Annapolis Area Doulas you can check that our HERE! (Warning there are placenta pictures included!)