Throw away placenta!?

Mar 4, 2015

While your baby is growing inside you, the placenta is working hard to filter waste and nutrients. It is attached to the uterine wall and it's kind of like the baby is plugged in to the life source. 

The umbilical cord is the vessel which connects the baby to the placenta and we have all, in the not too distant past, learned to not clamp the cord until it stops pulsating. For the blood to stop flowing through to the baby. The placenta is the tree of life in so many ways. 

"Nutrients and oxygen from the mother’s blood vessels feed into the placenta, where the foot-long umbilical cord channels the precious cargo through two internal arteries to the awaiting fetus. In exchange, a single vein carries fetal waste like carbon dioxide back through the cord to the placenta to be transferred to the mother for disposal via her bloodstream. (For a diagram, click here.) The organ also plays a role in guarding the fetus against bacterial infection, and transfers hormones that control the mother’s metabolism and aid the baby’s growth." I love the picture in this article, but am not in agreement wth the very last sentence!

Now, placenta encapsulation is becoming ever more popular. And for good reason, all the nutrients the baby required are waiting in the placenta, but beacuse the baby is born they have no where to go. Encapsulation allows mom to get back what she had prepared for the baby. and these nutrients and hormones can help her regulate her emotions and milk suply in the early post partum days.

Just look at this 'tree of life'!