Would you eat your placenta? After reading this you may wish you did! Placentas have been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as long ago as in the Placenta11500’s, which is longer than modern medicine has existed. It has been continued to be used due to an abundance of great properties believed to make a huge difference to a new mother’s mental health, recovery and well being. Cultures that find it customary to prepare the placenta for the mother or are known to consume part or all of the placenta include the Chinese, Vietnamese, Hungarians and Italians. These cultures believe that the placenta is rich in nutrients that will greatly assist the mother to recover from childbirth, including slowing and stopping haemorrhaging during childbirth and helping with milk supply. We know that animals consume their placentas, even vegetarian animals – like cows, and for good reason – they know what’s good for them!

Placenta CapsulesWhat Are The Benefits Of Placenta Encapsulation?
Consuming the placenta can:

• Help to balance your hormones

• Assist the uterus to return to its pre-pregnancy state

• Reduce post-natal bleeding

• Increase milk production – this has been proven in a study

• Make for a happier, more enjoyable post-natal period

• Increase your energy levels

• Prevent and lessen the risk of postpartum depression or the ‘baby blues’ due to the hormone supply in the placenta that helps stabilise your own hormones.

• Replenish your iron from blood loss during birth and to prevent post birth anaemia.

• Provide an ongoing source of the love and bonding hormone oxytocin.

• Replenish your B vitamins and energy used in the process of growing and birthing your baby.

• Protection from infection and bleeding.

• Providing natural pain relief. Baby blues can effect up to 80% of women within the first week of birth. Women who consume their placenta report fewer emotional issues and a more enjoyable babymoon. Who wouldn’t want that?!

In the media, Hollywood actress January Jones raved about placenta consumption, and more recently Kim Kardashian announced on her show that she’d be eating her baby’s placenta. It’s really is starting to becoming common knowledge that placenta has a certain something that’s helping new mothers significantly enough to make them actually want to consume the placenta.

What the TCM Herbal Remedy Materia Medica has to say on Human Placenta
Pharmaceutical Name: Placenta Hominis
English Translation “purple river vehicle”
Properties: sweet, salty, warm

• Channels entered: Liver, Lung, Kidney

Actions and Indications:

• Tonifies the liver and Kidneys and augments essence: for infertility, impotence, spermatorrhea, back pain, light headaches and tinnitus from insufficiency of Kidney qi and debility of the essence of blood.

•  Augments the qui and nourishes the blood: emaciation, pallor, and/or insufficient lactation due to exhaustion of qi and blood. Also used for unremitting seizure disorders.

• Tonifies the Lung qui and augments the Kidney essence: for wheezing due to deficiency of the lungs and Kidneys. Especially useful between acute attack or consumption with night sweats, emaciation, debility, as well as chronic cases of wheezing and coughing.

What women say about their experience with consuming their placenta pills

Placenta Capsules in bowl“The last few weeks have been magic thanks. My baby is mesmerisingly beautiful. I have been taking the capsules daily. My well being is also positive. My body has fully recovered, my energy is quite high and my moods have been generally balanced. We have only had one or two restless nights that were easily managed. It’s hard to know exactly what it is that makes it work, but something in me has certainly changed from a stressful prenatal period. We also really treasure the umbilical cord heart. Thank you so much”

“Thank you so much for the beautiful job you did. Every time I look at the umbilical cord I get so emotional. I didn’t realise it came with the package and didn’t realise the impact it would have in a good way! My mum wants to frame the print of the placenta.”

“I can’t recommend the services of Opening to Life highly enough, the sensitivity, understanding and depth given by Anna Urbanski was astounding and received with such gratitude. It is rare in life to find a soul who has the courage to connect on such a deep level, a being who is prepared to give of themselves so completely to the work they are doing that that work itself, truly becomes a gift. Anna’s ability to connect through the placenta to both the mother and the child has a beauty all it’s own, the way she honours the journey of the two souls involved, her gentleness, her openness and her ability to hold the energy of mother and baby with such reverence have created for me the belief that Anna is the link so many women have been longing for. I and my family feel blessed for having experienced this journey, the benefits will continue way into our children’s future, supporting them, protecting them, nurturing them with the sacredness of this ancient and beautiful medicine.” Donnamarie

“All I can say is WOW, I have had a wonderful post baby experience and to test it out I didn’t take any capsules for two days just to see how much it impacted how I felt and energy levels. It made enough difference that I couldn’t wait to start taking them again!!!!!!!

“THANK YOU I am looking forward to also reaping the benefits of the tincture too. I will be doing this again with any future babies.” Liz “I have found the pills amazing. I haven’t had the emotional roller-coaster that I had with my first. I feel like I have managed and been really clear headed from day one. Probably helps that Meikah is a great sleeper too. My supply of milk is better this time around, I wonder if that helps Meikah’s sleep too. Overall I have felt really good within myself. I will definitely do this again if we have another baby.” Julie

“I have been taking the placenta capsules since the birth of my third child who is now nearly 5 months old, and I cannot brag about them enough.  The speed with which my body recovered has been fantastic. I have been feeling incredible since giving birth and unlike my previous two births, I haven’t had any postnatal blues/depression.”

“I have actually been losing weight, and I have long and healthy nails for the first time ever.  I just wish I had known about Anna’s encapsulating services when I had my first child. Once again, thank you so so much Anna.”  Marta

The Process of Encapsulation

You can choose from 3 different ways of preparing your placenta. You can choose both an encapsulation method and the placenta tincture, as only a very small amount of the placenta is used for the tincture.

1. Raw Placenta Encapsulation

RAW Placenta Encapsulation skips the heating process altogether. This method of preparation involves cleaning the placenta and then dehydrating the placenta before it is ground and put into capsules. Placenta capsules made with this method provide a burst of energy up front and great hormone stabilisation.

2. TCM Placenta Encapsulation TCM

Placenta Encapsulation is inspired by Traditional Chinese Medicine.  This method of preparation involves cleaning the placenta, gently heating and then dehydrating the placenta before it is ground and put into capsules. Your unique blend of Traditional Chinese Herbs are then added to boost your personal blend and increase your quantity of capsules. Using this preparation is thought to bring out the placentas healing and tonifying properties.

3. Placenta Tincture

Using part of your placenta to make a Placenta Tincture enables you to reap the benefits of your placenta many years into the future. Some of the benefits for the mother include hormone stabilisation and energy in her postpartum cycles, less bleeding during those cycles, and constitutional support in the menopause years down the road. The placenta is a rich source of stem cells and contains both the mother and child’s strengths and weaknesses. Treating the individual with this highly personalised remedy will provide balance when there is imbalance. It will be an excellent immune and constitutional remedy throughout the child’s entire life.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to reap the benefits of your baby’s placenta for that can last a lifetime!

Placenta Package

What You Receive
With your package placenta capsules and tincture you choose, you also receive:

Placenta Reading and Photo
When I am working with placentas, I get a sense of the energy of the baby or the birth and I give my clients that information in a letter with a photo of their amazing placenta!

Placenta Print
A print of your placenta – like any other printmaking – this is creating a print directly from your placenta on art quality paper for you to keep or frame. Please Note: This is not available for Lotus placentas.

Placenta cord keepsake
This is shaping and drying the cord for you to keep or plant.

Directions
Easy to follow directions for you to refer to, along with any support you need via phone or email contact should you wish to ask any questions.

How do I book my placenta encapsulation?
Simply call or email Anna at anna@openingtolife.com.au or 0408 954 120. I will send you a booking form and arrange pick up of your placenta as soon as possible after the birth. The process usually takes a day or so. You will have your package within 72 hours, just in the perfect timing for when your birthing hormones start to decline.

Find out more
http://openingtolife.com.au/

My opinion
 In the current culture, we are led to believe a good mother sacrifices herself for her children/babies, so we think it is ‘our lot’ to feel exhausted, emotional and chaotic after birth. Part of this is the rite of passage of new motherhood, but it does not have to be so difficult.

The placenta has come to be seen as waste product and it is discarded as no longer useful after birth. We have become disconnected from the fact that when we are growing our babies, all of our nourishment, love, hormones and energy goes from us to our baby through the placenta. All of the love, hormones, energy and nutrition that is ours, perfect for us, gone! And we commence our mothering depleted. Ingesting the placenta is supporting the new mother by giving all of that energy and nourishment back to herself; she does not have to lose it. Reclaiming the placenta, is reclaiming that a strong mother is the best mother, what is best for the mother is best for the baby. Every placenta is unique; I can often feel the energy of the baby and the birth in the placenta. It is sacred work for me. It is amazing how the placenta does whatever it needs to do to filter all that goodness to grow the baby!

About Anna Urbanski

I am a doula, doula trainer, birth educator, birth hypnosis practitioner and teacher, placenta encapsulator, body worker and mentor. I have been attending births for over 12 years. My breadth of experience and diversity of skills has given me a particular expertise in supporting women – and their families – in having the best birth experience possible for them. You birth how you live. You do not suddenly become a different person to birth or mother your baby. Working with how you are now is so exciting and empowering. It takes you to a great confidence in yourself and a wonderful acceptance of the power and rightness of your birth – not matter what unfolds on the day. Birth is a peak moment that you and your baby carry with you forever more. It is an incredible opportunity to create a peak experience that forever strengthens and inspires you. I help you get the most out of this time.

 

For more information on Pre and Post-Natal support visit Kundalini House