world view.

for christmas my sister gave me a cute little metal case to hold my ID, credit cards and our adorable new business cards :) i love it. i have actually never had an 'official' business card. after college, i volunteered with a non-profit and then became a flight attendant. ive never had a job that required one. and honestly i never thought i would have a business card that had the word "placenta" on it :)
when i was growing up all my dream jobs involved traveling. a national geographic photographer. a marine biologist. or how great would it be to be the person who goes through the amazon and test different plants to see if it could be a cure for AIDS? it intrigues me that there are places in brazil where they take the poison from a frog, put it on an arrow or something sharp and then they cut you so that the poison gets into your blood stream. and this is supposed to help with some sickness (i swear i saw it on the animal planet :). who comes up with these techniques and do they really work?
it seems as if every culture has their own methods or miracle drugs. I have had fish eat my dead skin cells in cambodia. i have bathed in a tea tree oil lake in australia. i have experienced 'reflexology' in thailand. did you know that in the Buddhist country of laos they believe in karma and that "being stressed" is bad for your karma? it is one of the most laid back cultures. i have been sick in almost every continent and as i travel, i observe, i experience, i embrace, i learn. and i continue to ask myself, when it comes to health....who knows best?
we know that what we do here at 'fruit of the womb' may seem foreign or uncommon or seem like a 'new' concept to many. when in reality the placenta has held a place of honor throughout the history of time. people honor the placenta differently depending on the culture of course, but the important thing is that we stop to recognize that this organ serves an important, sacred purpose in fostering new life.
regardless of where you live.

Shower Yourself

I love hosting baby showers and blessingways! I believe that all babies and mothers should be showered with love. It shouldn't matter if this is your 1st, 3rd, or 5th baby, they are each a gift! And every pregnancy and birth is unique and special.
It is amazing to me all the things we as mothers do to prepare for our little one. All of the visits to make sure mom and baby are healthy. The classes we can take to prepare for birth and breastfeeding. We even have this 'instinct' to prepare our home. The nursery bed is made. The tiny clothes are folded and organized. Everything is perfect. It seems as though we have thought of everything to welcome our baby and we would stop at nothing to make sure they are safe, healthy, and loved.
Once the baby has arrived you realize the simplicity of a baby's needs. Food, warmth, and love. Don't get me wrong those vibrating bouncy seats can do wonders (especially when you have multiple children). But when you really think about the true needs of the baby you realize...hum...maybe we could have done without this or that...at least for awhile.
If you are like 80% of other women you start to experience what is commonly known as "The Baby Blues." You have just delivered a baby and the 'pregnancy state' your body has been getting used to has significantly been altered in a matter of hours. Blood has been lost, hormones are fluctuating, your uterus is still working hard to contract down, your breast milk is being produced, just to name a few. Although you have been anticipating this day, and meeting your baby for the first time, you are trying to heal and are understandably exhausted and fatigued.
I encourage you research the many benefits, for both you and baby, of placentophagy. The opportunity for you to invest in your postpartum period is priceless. Once the placenta is thrown away your opportunity to have it encapsulated, and all of its benefits, are lost. This is a natural way to heal with no side effects because it was designed, from the very beginning, with only you and baby in mind.
So, as you prepare for your newborn with Classes and Gift Registry, give yourself the gift of a successful postpartum period and invest in Placenta Encapsulation for you and your child.

You want me to eat what?

The thought of eating a placenta sounds horrible to me. I am not a sushi kind of girl so raw in general sort of makes me nauseous. However, given the situation, and if we are talking life or death there would be no question in my mind; I will do whatever needs to be done- and drink whatever I need to drink- to be well.
Following these traditional methods of placentophagy are amazing. The draw back to creating a "placenta cocktail" or actually cooking with a placenta is that it limits the time of consumption and therefore the amount of time you may benefit from its resources.
This is why placenta encapsulation is such a great alternative. You still get the many benefits of nutrients, hormones, etc. but it is carefully put in the highest grade of Vegetarian Capsules that have no preservatives, no animal products and are put in an easy to swallow size capsule.

We follow the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) guidelines of placenta encapsulation. This process includes steaming, drying, grinding and encapsulating the placenta. The preservation technique of dehydration simply refers to the removal of moisture from foods, in other words, drying. This method extends shelf life significantly because yeasts, molds and bacteria need moisture to survive. Therefore, as long as the capsules do not get wet, they are good for many years to come. And, when you have recovered from childbirth, you can freeze the capsules and save them for menopause.
So if you are one of the many women that can't "swallow" the idea of eating the placenta that is OK. Placenta encapsulation is the best choice to receive optimum benefits.

Birth Plan...Placenta Plan

Epidural...no epidural?
Episiotomy...no episiotomy?
Pitocin...no Pitocin?
There are so many things to think about while preparing for your birth. I loved the idea my Childbirth Class Educator while preparing for my first birth. The idea was to have a plan before walking into the hospital and the realization that I do have choices. I felt empowered by having a plan. I felt like I was prepared. I knew that I had done my research and made decisions that were right for me.
It was not until my second child that my Licensed Homebirth Midwife had asked me something I had never been questioned about before. She had asked me what my plan for the placenta was. I, like most women probably, was taken by surprise. A plan for my placenta? I suppose I didn't realize there was much to do with the placenta. I was in nursing school at the time. We had discussed during my Labor and Delivery rotation everything there was to know about pregnancy, birth and postpartum. NEVER had anyone told me that a mother had options in regards to the placenta. It made me sad to think that this amazing connection between my first born and I, a "lifeline" as I have heard it called before was simply thrown in the trash with hardly a second look. It seemed so unappreciated. I had heard of preserving cord blood before and all of the research that is going into it's benefits but never the placenta.
Because of my schooling I was well aware of what the placenta was for but had never been taught the benefits of a placenta once the baby was born. I liked the idea of honoring the placenta in some way maybe to bury it under a tree to represent the new life it had become.
Then my midwife mentioned eating it. Wait, what did you say... eating it!?!? Um, no. I mean somebody was going to have to pay me to do something totally gross like that. Sure, I wanted to be 'super natural' but I have to draw the line somewhere. I flippantly said, "Who would do that unless it was like life or death!?" My wonderful midwife smiled and laughed and sweetly told me stories of women whose life HAD been saved physically as a result of eating the placenta raw and other women whose life had been saved emotionally by eating it in pill form. Hummm... I thought...I'll think about it. Although I did eventually get the placenta encapsulated, which I am so grateful for, I still had many questions.
By baby number 3 I finally had a placenta plan! I did my research and had someone lined up to encapsulate the placenta. I was also aware of the benefits of traditional placentophagy and had told myself that if a situation arose I would remain open to a "placenta cocktail." Thank goodness I did not need to take it, for if I did, it may have came right back up. The point is I was aware. I knew my options and I had a plan. I had made educated decisions on what was best for me, my baby, and my family.
I have no idea what is right for you and your family. But, I do know, that traditionally mothers are never asked what their 'plan' is for the placenta. It is simply thrown in the trash. And although that is 100% a choice that you can make I encourage mothers to truly look at the many other options you have. Make it part of your birth plan and review it with your health care professionals.