If you eat a human placenta, would you consider yourself a cannibal??
I can’t believe I’m answering this, but I’d say yes. I mean, if you ate a person’s finger, you’d certainly be considered a cannibal, so why not in this case?
Is this purely hypothetical, or are you considering this? Are there people you do this? Eck, gross.
If you’re not a troll, are you holding a barbecue anytime soon?
Yes, there are people who eat (human) placentas. By a very literal definition of the word cannibal, I guess placentavores could qualify, but these people are generally more New Age Hippies than they are Hannibal Lecter.
When my ex was pregnant with the first kid, the Doctor asked me;
“Do you know why they always ask for boiling water when it looks like the mother will not make it to the hospital, and have the baby at home?”
I say, “No”
He says, “It’s for the placenta soup”.
My girlfriend takes dessicated placenta tablets every day. That’s about half a gram of placenta each 24 hours. Adds up, I should imagine. Yes, I think it’s gross. The package is pretty creepy, too: “Sugar-coated Placenta Tablets – Prepared from fresh placenta of healthy young mothers.” Mmmmmm.
I’ve always taken trolls at face value; “tell the truth and shame the devil.”
Placenta-eating may or may not have ever been common practice - when doctors trained by the church-based universitites sought to elbow midwives out of the way by slandering them as witches, “placentophagy” or whatever the term is, was a common accusation. And perhaps it did indeed occur - the average peasant diet was protien-deficient in those days!
But true or not, the accusation was disgusting enough to displace midvives in favor of physicians (and therby raise the infant mortality rate until those doctors learned to wash their hands: unlike a midwife going from vulva to vulva all day, a doctor would go from corpse to vulva to corpse to vulva, spreading a dog’s dinner of germs along his rounds).
But eating the placenta is not canibalism - once expelled the placenta is no longer valid tissue - any more than is the blood sucked from a pricked finger. And I’m sure that somewhere in the Vatican archives lies some zealot’s memo, squelched by wiser minds, condemning fellatio not only for the usual reason that it inturrupts the natural union of egg and sperm, but because it techincally constitutes canibalism.
First post is about eating placentas. I think I’m gonna like this guy.
You might be interested in a little background on this. Back in the 70’s, when obstetrical practice was emerging from the dark ages of drugging laboring women into screaming semi-consciousness and ripping their infants from their bodies (my first child was born by this quaint, old-fashioned method, and I only exaggerate a little) many women were exploring other more humane and ‘natural’ ways to birth babies. I read many of the books out at that time (after that first experience, you can just bet I did!) and I remember one noting that many animals eat part or all of the placenta after giving birth.
The placenta is rich in the hormones that cause the uterus to contract after birth. This is extremely important, not only for the uterus to return to it’s non-pregnant size, but because the action of the uterus contracting clamps down on the blood vessels that are opened when the placenta is torn from the uterine wall and expeled. This prevents hemorraging that often use to result in maternal death. This natural mechanism is often faulty and is usually treated by external pressure exerted on the uterus and by hormones given through IVs. However, munching on a little placenta after birth WAS suggested as a natural means of aiding this process.
I have always assumed that that is where the Saturday Night Live “Placenta Helper” bit came from. BTW, I bred persian cats at one time and they always ate their placentas like good girls. When my 3rd child was born (via natural childbirth - it was great) my Dr. let me examine my placenta - it was much larger than I expected - it was hard to imagine that I could house both the baby and this thing) but it was really interesting. Not bloody at all really, and a very complicated structure.
my sentiments exactly. Also, I consider eating internal organs and limbs cannibalism, and, since the placenta isn’t any of those, I don’t consider it cannibalism [sub]I just consider it gross…[/sub]
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- Daowajan, me too.
- and doesn’t this belong in IMHO?
- Hi Opal!
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carry on…
I know quite a few people that have eaten placenta as a kind of new-age ritual.
That said, does being on the recieveing end of a blow-job make you a cannible? I don’t think so.
so…is the moral of this story “as long as you eat your OWN placenta (placenta helper…LMFAO) it’s ok, but if you eat someone else’s placenta, you’re a cannibal”?
Just checking!
female, btw… and sven, as far as i can recall, one does not physically consume the flesh when giving a blow job… not that i would know 