Abstract
We surveyed 189 females who had ingested their placenta and found the majority of these women reported perceived positive benefits and indicated they would engage in placentophagy again after subsequent births.
Our survey shows that the vast majority of women in our sample who engaged in placentophagy did so in the belief it would provide benefits to themselves (and their babies) after delivery. These expected benefits included improved mood and lactation in the postpartum period, among others. Our survey participants generally reported some type of perceived benefit from the practice, felt that their postpartum experience with placentophagy was a positive one, and overwhelmingly indicated that they would engage in placentophagy again after subsequent pregnancies. The most commonly reported negative aspect of placentophagy regarded the nature of the placenta’s overall appeal. While a small percentage of our sample (24%) reported some other negative association with placentophagy, even the women who noted these negative aspects responded that they would engage in placentophagy again if given the chance. This suggests that women could derive some perceived benefits from placentophagy without experiencing negative results unpleasant enough to dissuade them from this postpartum practice.
Conclusions
There was a notable lack of negative side effects of placentophagy reported in the survey, with only a small percentage of women reporting the negative effect of unappealing taste or smell of placenta/capsules. So while placentophagy may be unappealing from a gastronomic perspective, our survey suggests that mothers who choose to engage in the practice do not often perceive negative effects as a result. Additionally, because the overwhelming majority of our respondents indicated that their experience was very positive, this suggests that the negative effects reported were not unpleasant enough to negatively influence their overall experience.
In addition to nearly all respondents indicating a positive or very positive experience with placentophagy, almost all of the participants reported that they would engage in the practice again with the placentas of subsequent children. In fact, both of the participants who selected negative or very negative to describe their placentophagy experience also indicated that they would engage in placentophagy again.