Can you keep your placenta & eat it tooo?

Tuesday, 08 May 2007 11:21AM

Mother and Hospital Battle Over Placenta

A Las Vegas mother is battling a local hospital over the ownership of a placenta. Anne Swanson gave birth at Sunrise Hospital last month, and wants her placenta so she can ingest it for its nutrients.

But Swanson says the hospital has told her the organ was contaminated, and she would have to go to court to get it back. Yesterday, Swanson and a group of other women protested outside the Maryland Parkway hospital, with signs reading "Free the Placenta."

A spokeswoman for Sunrise Hospital would not discuss the case, but says placentas are kept in cold storage for three days and are disposed if there is no request to keep it.

Swanson says she'll contact the ACLU and Planned Parenthood to get the placenta back. But because it is contaminated, she has no plans to turn it into pills for consumption. Traditional Chinese medicine suggests that the excess hormones in placentas can treat postpartum depression.

It's weird, but I think people should have a right to save anything medically removed from their body (teeth, organs, etc.)

Who would want to keep it but this is a little gross. On a side note having dish tv in my bedroom whenI was like 12 or 13 I remeber watching an episode of like real sex or something where this lady had a cookbook and had part snacks for a chicks party with placenta which I think is disgusting. So it is nothing new but gross yes.

i've been there when women have requested to keep the placenta a few times during my years with FDNY. as far as i know, certain cultures practice that regularly.

LOL, so have I. Not the most appetizing item I have seen.