I just heard a ‘wild’ report from a newly pregnant woman when I asked her about all the new issues that pregnant woman have to deal with. I was thinking of issues of genetic screening, and cord blood banking….how woman were handling these new issues that had not confronted my wife and I when we were having kids, and she told me about another, even stranger topic: placentophagia.
What is that? It is the practice, among some ‘natural types’ who recommend dry freezing and eating encapsulated placenta (their own child’s placenta) to provide extra nutrition, hormonal benefits, and other undisclosed improvements in the post-partum phase.
Googling this topic, I could find no scientific justification for even considering this process, despite the fact that many mammals are of the practice of eating the afterbirth. There is no scientific justification for such a practice, and I think this NY TIMES article says it all.
Perhaps you didn’t need to hear about this one, but it shows me that nothing in the world should surprise me when it comes to non-traditional beliefs about health and self-healing.