American mother Melissa Grenham, is 39 weeks pregnant with her second child, and is due to give birth at Queen Mary Hospital any day now. But she still hasn’t heard back from the public hospital about whether she’ll be allowed to keep her placenta after she gives birth, a request she made back in June.
After experiencing severe fatigue following the birth to her first child, Grenham decided to encapsulate her placenta when she learnt it can help pregnant women with many post-birth issues, reports the SCMP.
This is the fourth request that Queen Mary Hospital has received by women wishing to keep their placentas. It is an increasingly popular practice in Western countries, as some believe consuming placenta can help prevent post-partum depression, improve breast milk production, increase energy and even slow down aging, according to a the New York Times columnist who ate her placenta (and regretted it).
Very few scientific studies have been made on this practice however, which, unsurprisingly, has grossed a lot of people out.
A spokesman for the Hospital Authority says that they denied Grenham’s request as they have “to comply with the law”, in addition to “relevant government rules and regulations” to “ensure public health and public interests are safeguarded”.
However, Grenham says that neither the Health Department nor the Environmental Protection Department have raised any objections to her unusual request. And so she is embroiled in a bureaucratic battle with multiple government departments.
Placentas are normally classified as medical waste by Hong Kong hospitals and are disposed of accordingly, while private hospitals allow mothers to keep them if they wish.
According to a study on the practice of maternal placentophagy, or the eating of placentas by mothers, it is “widespread among mammals” but “conspicuously absent among humans cross-culturally” — meaning that even in our diverse, crazy world, there is no culture in which it’s normal for women to eat the placenta they have just given birth to, until very recently.
The BBC says that besides drying the placenta to put into easily-consumed capsules, some women eat their placentas by making smoothies with berries, while other — brace yourselves — cook it up like they would beef, making a placenta burger or Bolognese sauce. Sounds delicious!
Apparently, celebrities like January Jones and Alicia Silverstone have all eaten their own placentas, while Kim Kardashian at least considered it. Each to their own, but defintely consult your doctor, and not your favourite celebrity, before you plan on consuming human organs.
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