Human Placenta, Used in Chinese Medicine for Centuries

What is it about the human placenta used in Traditional Chinese Medicine that seems to capture our attention? Other mammals eat their placenta's immediately after giving birth, only humans have been historically out of sync.

I must qualify that statement, humans in the West. Asian cultures have never lost touch with this idea. There are several thousand Chinese herbs documented in use for over a thousand years. Only 500-600 hundred are commonly used today and human placenta falls into the commonly used Chinese herb category.

This growing trend of bringing home a new moms placenta, has been practiced in the East without fanfare. Moms and grandmothers have known for centuries the health benefits of preparing a placenta with Chinese herbs to help a new mother recuperate from the labor or child birth. The placenta is packed with hormones, vitamins, minerals and is well known to help milk production.

Recently New York Magazine wrote about the latest trend and a new book called "The Placenta Cookbook". Congratulations to the author for writing the first cookbook of it's kind. Just when we thought every possible food group recipe had been written, this authors delivers something new. I haven't seen the book so I'm not sure if she talks about preparing placenta with Chinese herbs. It's a true skill and not to be undertaken without some training.

I've written about Tom Cruise eating placenta before and it has been a popular blog post. You can see it here. Personally I would opt for my placenta made into capsules. I recommend hiring a qualified dula for this job. The expense is certainly worth it to safety reap all the benefit from your afterbirth.

More blogs on this topic:

Eating the Afte! rbirth, A Chinese Medicine Tradition

How Valuable is a Human Placenta


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chemical Additive in Your Herbs. To Sulfur or Not to Sulfur

Image
When purchasing dried fruit, 9 out of 10 people will pick the bag that looks prettier than the one that has fruit turned brown. Go beyond the beautiful color because that beautiful color is deceiving. It may even carry toxins. Sulfur dioxide is used to prevent discoloration in dried fruit but it's carries some significant side effects. The most common reactions are diarrhea, allergies, headaches and asthma. Now what about the herbs you buy? Do your herbs contain sulfur dioxide (SD) and does SD effect the fundamental quality of the herbs? Chinese herbs are derived from natural plant and mineral products. Like any natural product, they are vulnerable to mold and insect infestation. To control the decay and mold many herbal products and natural supplements are sprayed with sulfur based fumigation. This process kills bacteria, mold, insects and may also be used for bleaching/ cleaning raw herbs. But can it change the chemical constituents of a particular herb? In some cases we know fo...
Keep reading

Our Need For Speed Is Going Herbal

Image
Do you have enough energy to stay ahead of the game? You can if you know the rules of the game. Building, storing and keeping energy are the keys. But todays fast paced, multitasking world creates many different stressors on our bodies.Often physical and emotional stress can drain us. With so much on our plates, how do we take enough time to give our body the fuel it needs to cope in our ultra-fast, get it done yesterday environment? Eat well, build muscle and fat to store energy and then our bodies have enough to survive and thrive. These rules have always applied, but getting the right, high octane fuel is not so easy in our modern world.This is where coffee comes in handy.It is the perfect natural stimulant, right?Its cheap, works fast and gives us that energy boost we desire.Yet, coffee does not contain anything that PRODUCES energy, it simply causes your body to release adrenaline into the blood. Adrenaline is a hormone that produces the fight or flight response.It is also known a...
Keep reading

Renaming Sleep Aids Ambien Now Called Intermezzo

FDA just approved a subligual Ambien for "insomnia in the middle of the night followed by difficulty returning to sleep" It has taken a few years, but the FDA has now approved Intermezzo, a low dose drug with the same active ingredient as Ambien. Zolpidem tartrate will now be in a sublingual tablet form rather than the sleeping pill, Ambien. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, said Shakespeare and in this case Intermezzo is still Ambien and the side-effects are the same. For people who have difficulty staying asleep and can't fall back to sleep we recommend an herbal sleep aid that has been used for centuries, safely. If you are looking for a completely safe and natural sleep aid that can be taken in the middle of the night and works without side-effects you owe it to yourself to try Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine. The herbs in our iSleep Herb Pack have been used safely and effectively for hundreds of years and clinically tested on thousands of patients...
Keep reading