# Would you ever eat (or have you ever eaten) human placenta? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 19, 2010, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613 "2010-02-19T10:45:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![tesseract](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bb73d2/32.png) [@tesseract](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tesseract)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/61 "2013-09-11T05:07:59Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Interesting idea. How long ago did you give birth, may I ask? Um…dangit, I knew someone might ask this. 5 years. Yep, it’s still in there in the freezer. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/62 "2013-09-11T12:07:15Z")
> [@Student\_Driver](#): > > When she finally gave birth, she thought it would be funny to actually present me with her placenta, and asked the doctors/nurses/whomever to save it and give it to her. I’d think the great majority of hospitals have policies ensuring that parents can take the placenta home for whatever ritual they desire, as well as other organs (unsurprisingly, few patients want their colons to keep in a jar on the mantlepiece). ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/63 "2013-09-11T15:30:58Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#): > > I read all about this in Compleat Mother, a hippy mother publication when I was pregnant with one of my children. They suggested you bake it, dry it, pulverize it and put the powder into gelatin capsules and consume it that way. There were all sorts of reasons why it was supposed to be good for you, postpartum-recovery wise. > > It was interesting reading but a little extreme for me. But if you’re going to eat the thing, this truly seemed like the least offensive way to go. I’d always envisioned this as the way to eat it, not to barbeque it or something. I think some people use (goat’s) placenta as a cure for asthma in traditional Chinese medicine. Actually, seeing they use HUMAN placenta in traditional Chinese medicine, maybe it wasn’t goat’s after all… (the Chinese phrase for placenta is “purple river vehicle”. Haha.) As an aside, I think placenta is the most common least mentioned body organ/product. It’s like it’s taboo or something. I just looked at images of placentas and they’re huge! I thought they would be the size of a hand, but they look big enough for a baby to sleep on! ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/64 "2013-09-11T17:00:45Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I Googled “All My Babies”, which is in the Library of Congress’ archive of films considered representative of the United States, and found this thread! > > ["All My Babies" - an amazing documentary! - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=531627) > > In the movie, “Miss Mary” wraps the placenta in newspaper and burns it in the family’s wood stove. :eek: I got “All My Babies” from the library once because there are so few documentaries on midwifery and natural childbirth, only to realize that Miss Mary delivered several of my dad’s siblings. At the end with the poor couple (staged, BTW) on Hardup Road? My aunt lives on Hardup Road. The same one. You can totally tell. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/65 "2013-09-11T19:49:17Z")
I make it a practice to never eat any lady parts that are not firmly attached to the lady in question. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/66 "2013-09-11T22:59:26Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > As an aside, I think placenta is the most common least mentioned body organ/product. It’s like it’s taboo or something. I just looked at images of placentas and they’re huge! I thought they would be the size of a hand, but they look big enough for a baby to sleep on! If you think about it… for about 9 months babies _do_ sleep on them. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/67 "2013-09-11T23:14:00Z")
Has anyone yet questioned the need for the qualifier “human” in the subject? ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/68 "2013-09-12T04:36:10Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > If you think about it… for about 9 months babies _do_ sleep on them. 🙂 Not really, in [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Placenta.svg/581px-Placenta.svg.png](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Placenta.svg/581px-Placenta.svg.png) they’re more beside/above the baby. And smaller. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/69 "2013-09-12T07:28:56Z")
The smilie is often used to indicate this thing called a “joke” or other form of humor, it was not meant to be a literal comment with the notion that feti fluff up the placental mass like a blanket and tuck a corner of it under their head like a pillow. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/70 "2013-09-12T15:21:37Z")
> [@tesseract](#): > > Um…dangit, I knew someone might ask this. 5 years. Yep, it’s still in there in the freezer. Does placenta, like a fine wine, improve with age? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/71 "2015-01-16T16:24:31Z")
Bump. Just finished _Stiff_ by Mary Roach, which is worth a read (although not for the squeamish). She touches briefly on the consumption of human placentas. Still pretty uncommon. > **[Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers: 8601300104782: Medicine & Health...](https://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-Cadavers/dp/0393324826)** > > Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers: 8601300104782: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/72 "2015-01-17T03:16:41Z")
Can you get Mad Kid Disease from this? ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/73 "2015-01-17T03:54:48Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Bump. > > Just finished _Stiff_ by Mary Roach, which is worth a read (although not for the squeamish). She touches briefly on the consumption of human placentas. Still pretty uncommon. that would be a nibble. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/74 "2015-01-17T04:17:36Z")
Old man Dicky lived in a log cabin near us in the Adirondacks. Dicky’s wife delivered all their children in their cabin and Dicky assisted. After, he fried up a piece of each placenta and ate it. Several years ago poor Dicky was out in his canoe, and he drowned trying to save a dime bag of weed (his own harvest most likely) that had fallen overboard. He was a character and he’s very much missed. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/75 "2015-01-17T07:37:51Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > My mother had planned to eat the placenta from the birth of my youngest brother. > > Apparently, she changed her mind because we buried under a tree. (Apparently Native Americans think this gives the child a spiritual bond with the tree.) Having seen it myself, I simply can’t imagine eating it except in a dire famine. I know this is an incredibly old post, but why would you want a “spiritual bond” with a tree? With regards to the OP, even were I not a vegetarian, I would not eat medical waste, nor organ meat, nor would I engage in an act of cannibalism. So, no, no, and no. ---
**Author:** ![kk\_fusion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kk_fusion/32/15276_2.png) [@kk\_fusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kk_fusion)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/76 "2015-01-17T08:45:13Z")
Here’s someone you could ask (he’s recently been active on youtube again). TMI warning: ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613/77 "2015-01-17T11:38:38Z")
Maybe with some fava beans, and a nice chianti. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-ever-eat-or-have-you-ever-eaten-human-placenta/529613.md?page=3)