Placenta Pills: A growing trend

Some may have heard of a new trend mothers are picking up on: Consuming their placenta in a pill form after their babies are born. But do doctors recommend it?

Athough there is no scientific evidence to prove it, many claim eating the placenta can help mothers improve their health after giving birth. That includes restoring iron levels in the blood and increasing milk production.

Some companies offer to encapsulate your placenta. They break it down into pieces, place them in the dehydrator for about 20 hours and then blend them into powder to be encapsulated and consumed. The average-size placenta makes about 120 to 140 capsules.

This new trend of eating the pill form of the placenta is worrying some doctors who are advising mothers not to consider it.

Doctor Madelyn Butler, who practices out of Tampa, Florida, says she has been asked about placenta pills by her patients in the past. “I would advise them not to do it,” Butler says. “Think of all the bacteria that live in a home kitchen. Is the blender being sterilized in the same way we would sterilize something in the medical field?”

“There’s absolutely no scientific evidence that this is going to help you in anyway,” Butler adds. “I think the power of the mind, if you believe that something is going to work, it’s like the placebo effect, it’s going to work.”

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