During pregnancy, the placenta transports vital vitamins and minerals to your baby and produces and regulates hormones for you and your babe. Regardless of how you give birth (vaginal or cesarean, natural or medicated) your placenta retains many of those nutrients and hormones.
When ingested, your placenta has the potential to offer your recovering body protein, vitamins, and beneficial hormones, including CRH, corticotropin-relating hormone, which is known to reduce stress; something all new mothers desperately need.
If you plan on breastfeeding, prolactin is the hormone your body requires to produce milk. Your placenta contains prolactin and could potentially assist you in increasing your milk supply. In conjunction with prolactin, oxytocin is the hormone that counteracts stress and enhances the milk let-down during nursing. Additionally, you can expect to ingest estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone; all important for mammary gland development.
Some women lose blood during birth and there is always bleeding after birth. Your placenta is an iron-rich organ that can help you replenish and rebuild those lost iron stores. So many women report anemia in the postpartum months and eating foods containing iron, like your placenta, will help prevent or stabilize anemia and potentially increase energy as you figure out how to balance your life as a new mother.
Bottom line: If you decide to make placenta medicine, you’ll be ingesting a nutritious, iron and nutrient-rich organ that your body made just for you and your baby. You literally can’t get more customized than that when it comes to health and nutrition.