Eating the placenta after giving birth has become an increasingly popular trend in recent years, with many women claiming it has a number of health benefits. One woman reveals what it’s really like after Calvin Harris shared snaps of his wife’s organ
Music mogul Calvin Harris delighted fans after sharing snaps of his and his wife Vick Hope’s newborn son. But many weren’t prepared for the picture that came next, which featured a close-up of none other than Vick’s placenta.
The DJ also shared further photos of the organ cut into pieces and placed in a dehydrator to be made into pills, as his wife plans to reap the health benefits of her afterbirth by consuming it. Harris’ fans flooded the comments to congratulate him on the new addition, and praised him for “normalising the beauty of physiological birth”.
The placenta is an organ which is grown during pregnancy and provides the foetus with essential nutrients. It’s typically discarded after a woman gives birth, however some people choose to consume it in a variety of forms.
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People generally consume the placenta as they believe it contains nutritional benefits. According to WebMD, those who support eating the placenta claim it can help with childbirth recovery, raise your energy and breast milk supply, and reduce pain.
The process has become an increasingly mainstream phenomenon. It’s even been endorsed by the likes of Kim Kardashian and Alicia Silverstone.
Charlotte Butterworth-Pool 35, from Leeds, is among those to give placenta encapsulation ago when she had her first child six years ago.
“I did some research about the benefits of it,” she told The Mirror. “I’m a scientist, so I work in clinical research and I have a biomedical science degree and it just kind of made sense to me on a physiological level.
“Other animals eat their placentas and you’ve got to think there’s a reason behind that, other than obviously hiding it from predators.
“I found that there were lots of women who had had positive experiences with it. They said it really helped with their postpartum and their energy levels, milk supply, helping them not get postpartum depression and low mood. I just thought, like, why not give myself the best chance?”
Charlotte acknowledged that studies have not found evidence to support these claims, but still opted for the service, which cost her £220.
“I think sometimes with stuff like this, you’ve got to go with tradition. There’s quite a lot of traditional Chinese medicine that’s to do with the placenta, and that’s been done for centuries.”
Before giving birth, a cool box filled with ice packs arrived at Charlotte’s house for her to take to the hospital. When she arrived in labour, hospital staff put the cool packs in the fridge.
After she delivered the placenta, they simply let them know, and a courier came to collect it.
“We didn’t have to look at the placenta if we want to because it was just in a bag. We put it inside the cool box and someone came to pick it up quite quickly, so it wasn’t a faff really,” she expplained.
Despite her positive experience, Charlotte opted not to go through with placenta encapsulation when she had her second baby.
“The first reason why I chose not to do it the second time round was because it’s hard to know if it makes a difference, right?
“But I’d lost quite a lot of blood during labour and I had never had any side effects from that, which I put down to the fact that I was taking my placenta pills.
“It did get to a point where – I don’t know if I had a massive placenta – but I had so many pills and physically taking the recommended dose – which I think was four pills a day every day – seemed like it was never ending. That put me off a bit.
“So I chose not to do it with my second, not because I had a negative experience with it, but just because I couldn’t pinpoint a specific positive experience.”
Another thing that put the mum of two off doing it again was the surprising taste of the pills. She explained: “Not the taste of the placenta, but the taste of the capsule. It had a chemically flavour.”
Like Harris, Charlotte’s husband was also supportive of her decision to eat her placenta. “I think he was quite used to me just making my own decisions about pregnancy, and he knows me and he knows that I like anatomy and science, so I don’t think he was too surprised, to be honest!”
Charlotte, who works as a doula, says eating your placenta is a way of “a way of honouring” the organ.
“There’s lots of other ways I know about now… things that you can do that are just as special as encapsulating it. Some people bury them, some people make prints with them… but just throwing it in the bin does seem a bit disrespectful it’s been keeping your baby alive.”
Taking to Instagram on Monday, One Kiss hitmaker Harris shared the very first picture of his newborn son, and celebrated wife Vick, calling her “a superhero”.
Alongside an adorable photo of the couple’s baby cuddling into his dad’s chest, Calvin wrote: “20th of July our boy arrived. Micah is here! My wife is a superhero and I am in complete awe of her primal wisdom! Just so grateful. We love you so much Micah.”
In the collection of photos Harris shared announcing the birth of Micah, it was revealed that Vick had a water birth as photos showed her in a blue birthing pool surrounded by candles.
Charlotte applauded the Instagram post, saying: “It’s so unusual that we see home birth in the media, and it’s so unusual that we see anything other than a clean, clinical birth with no blood or anything.
“So to post a picture of the placenta and have that in mainstream media is It’s amazing.
“I’m very happy he’s done it, because that’ll probably be the first time a lot of people have seen a placenta. just the fact that a little bit more people know what one looks like is a is a real positive.”
Charlotte is a doula and antenatal educator at The Smart Doula, www.thesmartdoula.com
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