Last Updated on February 18, 2024 by Natalie

“The hippy dippy ladies in my birthing class were all about silent births and eating their placenta!” My boss told me.

When I replied “Oh I’m totally going to eat my placenta” she laughed and said “oh yeah!” assuming that was a joke.

This was a common reaction.

My very supportive peeps typically responded with “Gross,” if I told them I planned on consuming my placenta (aka placentophagy) after I had my baby.

I didn’t really talk about it with people. Mostly because I would forget (everything while I was pregnant).

Not because I really cared what they thought about it.

I had no doubts about doing it.

I have a history of anxiety and depression and it’s the worst experience I’ve ever gone through.

I was terrified of getting hit with postpartum depression (PPD).

Preventing postpartum depression is one of the possible benefits of consuming your placenta.

So when I heard that consuming my placenta could avoid PPD, I was all in. 

While we’re on the subject of benefits, here they are…

Possible Placenta Encapsulation Benefits:

• Increase in the release of oxytocin, which helps the uterus shrink back to normal size and encourages bonding with the baby
• Decreases chances of postpartum depression or insomnia
• Increase in CRH, a stress-reducing hormone
• Restores iron levels in the blood
• Increases milk production and energy levels

How I Heard About It

I first heard about this whole placenta encapsulation business 4 years ago when my sister was having her fourth baby.

She experienced baby blues (strongly) after her second and third children were born. It usually manifested in the form of mom guilt for the baby born before the latest.

Knowing about her tendency to get the baby blues, for baby #4 she decided to consume her placenta in the form of placenta pills. She had a doula who encapsulated them for her.

She still got the baby blues but nowhere near as bad as she had the previous couple of times.

Was it because of the placenta pills? Or was it just her getting better at getting through it, knowing what it was and that it was temporary?

I don’t know. And quite honestly, I didn’t care.

There is not actual proof that it helps but so many women out there swore it did.

I will do anything that gives me even a chance of avoiding “that.” At the very least, it won’t hurt.

I collected a few quotes to get my placenta encapsulated.

My husband kept insisting that he could do it. He didn’t feel 100% comfortable with my placenta not being in our possession for a while.

He’s not squeamish at all about blood or body stuff and the kitchen is really his domain (not mine). I was hesitant because as I told him several times… this is important. He can’t drop the ball on this.

At my request, he watched YouTube videos and read articles on how to encapsulate my placenta and how I need to take the capsules (i.e. how many, for how long).

Of course there were a variety of methods so we did what we found to be the happy medium. And that’s what I’m sharing here.

Before You Go Into Labor:

• Important: they advise that you NOT consume your placenta if you test positive for Group B strep.
• If you are giving birth at a hospital, you will likely need to sign a waiver there in order to be able to take the placenta. Make sure you let them know as soon as you get to the hospital that you want to take your placenta home.

Following are the things we needed:

• Coleman FlipLid Cooler (with ice)
• Cookie sheet
• Oster Basket (Steamer)
• KRUPS F203 Electric Spice and Coffee Grinder
• Empty Gelatin Capsules
• Encapsulator (STRONGLY recommended) – Capsule Filling Machine

How to Prepare the Placenta Pills:

1. As soon as you get the placenta, put it in a bag in the cooler (with ice) so you can hold it there until someone can put it in the freezer
2. When you’re ready to begin preparing the placenta, defrost it
3. Steam the placenta for 15 minutes
4. Cut the placenta into thin strips and place the strips on a cookie sheet
5. Set the oven at its lowest setting and put the cookie sheet inside. Let it sit there for 8 hours to let it dry out. Various sets of directions gave different times for this step that ranged from 6-12 hours but the point is to dry out the placenta. You do not want any moisture in the placenta when you will grind it into a powder because moisture causes mold.  
6. Take the dried placenta and grind it. We used a coffee grinder. 
7. Once it’s ground into a powder, we encapsulated the powder into the smallest capsules using an encapsulator. 

How to take placenta pills:

From my understanding, placentophagy helps because your body becomes used to a certain level of hormones in your body. Once you are suddenly not pregnant, there is a fast dip in the levels your body has become used to. 

Taking these capsules and weaning off of them will ensure a more steady transition back to your pre-pregnancy levels.

How Many Pills Do You Get?

A placenta typically yields 100 – 200 capsules. 

My placenta yielded 89 capsules. 

How to Take Them

I did the math and wanted to stretch the amount of time that I’d take (my) maximum dose (3 capsules) as long as possible without facing a sudden and short transition to the next dose of 2 capsules. 

Note: I am very conservative when it comes to medications or supplements. I’ve always been paranoid about taking stuff but avoiding postpartum depression was very important to me so I did what I felt I needed to do. 

My Quantity and Schedule of Capsule Consumption:

• 3 per day for 3 weeks (that equalled 63 capsules, leaving me with 26 capsules)
• 2 per day for 12 days (leaving me with 2 capsules)
• 1 per day for the last 2 days (this wasn’t on purpose. I meant to end with 2/day but I forgot. It worked out nicely, I think)

My result:

I didn’t experience postpartum depression. I do think I felt the blues in waves but nothing that was intolerable.

I would sometimes get emotional about how much I loved my baby (and still do) but I didn’t drown in a black hole.

My perspective wasn’t warped with a tint of darkness.

Was it due to the placenta capsules? We’ll never know and next time I have a baby, I don’t plan on finding out.

Bring on the next placenta! 

If anyone out there is reading this, please reach out and let me know if you found this useful or relatable.

I’d love to hear from you!