I had a hospital birth last time from extreme complications and didn't remember to ask to keep the placenta. I wouldn't have done encapsulation anyways because last time I had a form of gestational hypertension that is caused by an adverse reaction to the placenta hormones, so it didn't seem prudent to prolong exposure to it.
If all goes well this time I might consider encapsulation, or I might do the freeze it for a year then bury it and plant a tree over it on the baby's 1st birthday. Not really sure yet.
To my knoweledge and research there have been NO studies done on this as far as ppd and baby blues goes. However, it seems silly to me to discount something that makes sense logically. There are hormones in the placenta, these are the hormones that are released into our bodies after the first trimester when the body nolonger regulates the initial pregnancy related hormone and the placenta takes over.
I have personally experienced how seriously the placenta hormones affect our bodies from another situation. My blood pressure went from 235/170 from extreme gestation hypertension to 130/90 in days after delivering, and so ridding my body of the placenta hormones. The sudden drop in hormones and the effect it had from the removal of the placenta from my body was obvious.
Since the sudden drop in hormones is also considered one of the main triggers of baby blues and triggering ppd in the beginning it only makes logical sense that by consuming the placenta and so the hormones it contains you can descrease the suddeness of this hormone level drop. Further, while there have been no studies done on it relating to baby blues and ppd, there have been many studies done on lactation, one I remember the numbers for showed effects in 47 of the 58 women studied. So this continues to support the theory that ingesting placenta does bring hormones into the body that affect our systems.
Here is an article the explains the theory behind baby blues and the placenta better.
Baby blues - postpartum depression attributed to low levels of corticotropin-releasing hormone after placenta is gone - Brief Article
Many new mothers feel depressed for weeks after giving birth. Physicians have vaguely attributed this malaise to exhaustion and to the demands of motherhood. But a group of researchers at the National Institutes of Health has found evidence for a more specific cause of postpartum blues. New mothers, the researchers say, have lower than normal levels of a stress-fighting hormone that earlier studies have found helps combat depression.
When we are under stress, a part of the brain called the hypothalamus secretes corticotropin-releasing hormone, or CRH. Its secretion triggers a cascade of hormones that ultimately increases the amount of another hormone - called cortisol - in the blood. Cortisol raises blood sugar levels and maintains normal blood pressure, which helps us perform well under stress. Normally the amount of cortisol in the bloodstream is directly related to the amount of CRH released from the hypothalamus. That's not the case in pregnant women.
During the last trimester of pregnancy, the placenta secretes a lot of CRH. The rise is so dramatic that CRH levels in the maternal bloodstream increase threefold. "We can only speculate," says George Chrousos, the endocrinologist who led the NIH study, "but we think it helps women go through the stress of pregnancy, labor, and delivery."
But what happens after birth, when the placenta is gone? Chrousos and his colleagues monitored CRH levels in 17, women from the last trimester to a year after they gave birth. All the women had low levels of CRH - as low as seen in some forms of depression - in the six weeks following birth. The seven women with the lowest levels felt depressed.
Chrousos suspects that CRH levels are temporarily low in new mothers because CRH from the placenta disrupts the feedback system that regulates normal production of the hormone. During pregnancy, when CRH levels are high in the bloodstream, the hypothalamus releases less CRH. After birth, however, when this supplementary source of CRH is gone, it takes a while for the hypothalamus to get the signal that it needs to start making more CRH.
"This finding gives reassurance to people that postpartum depression is a transient phenomenon," says Chrousos. "It also suggests that there is a biological cause."
COPYRIGHT 1995 Discover
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
So anyways, I obviously am at the very start of making any decision based on this, but was wondering what others thought? I definitly would much rather use something that is not only natural but is 100% from my own body, rather then take foriegn chemicals if ppd were to be an occurance. I know some people think the whole idea is gross, but that doesn't really make since to me, since this isn't a foriegn substance, nor is it a substance that is not meant to be ingested, since we know that most mammals do eat the birth placenta anyways and many cultures ingest it after brith as a normal traditional part of post partum care.
If all goes well this time I might consider encapsulation, or I might do the freeze it for a year then bury it and plant a tree over it on the baby's 1st birthday. Not really sure yet.
To my knoweledge and research there have been NO studies done on this as far as ppd and baby blues goes. However, it seems silly to me to discount something that makes sense logically. There are hormones in the placenta, these are the hormones that are released into our bodies after the first trimester when the body nolonger regulates the initial pregnancy related hormone and the placenta takes over.
I have personally experienced how seriously the placenta hormones affect our bodies from another situation. My blood pressure went from 235/170 from extreme gestation hypertension to 130/90 in days after delivering, and so ridding my body of the placenta hormones. The sudden drop in hormones and the effect it had from the removal of the placenta from my body was obvious.
Since the sudden drop in hormones is also considered one of the main triggers of baby blues and triggering ppd in the beginning it only makes logical sense that by consuming the placenta and so the hormones it contains you can descrease the suddeness of this hormone level drop. Further, while there have been no studies done on it relating to baby blues and ppd, there have been many studies done on lactation, one I remember the numbers for showed effects in 47 of the 58 women studied. So this continues to support the theory that ingesting placenta does bring hormones into the body that affect our systems.
Here is an article the explains the theory behind baby blues and the placenta better.
Baby blues - postpartum depression attributed to low levels of corticotropin-releasing hormone after placenta is gone - Brief Article
Many new mothers feel depressed for weeks after giving birth. Physicians have vaguely attributed this malaise to exhaustion and to the demands of motherhood. But a group of researchers at the National Institutes of Health has found evidence for a more specific cause of postpartum blues. New mothers, the researchers say, have lower than normal levels of a stress-fighting hormone that earlier studies have found helps combat depression.
When we are under stress, a part of the brain called the hypothalamus secretes corticotropin-releasing hormone, or CRH. Its secretion triggers a cascade of hormones that ultimately increases the amount of another hormone - called cortisol - in the blood. Cortisol raises blood sugar levels and maintains normal blood pressure, which helps us perform well under stress. Normally the amount of cortisol in the bloodstream is directly related to the amount of CRH released from the hypothalamus. That's not the case in pregnant women.
During the last trimester of pregnancy, the placenta secretes a lot of CRH. The rise is so dramatic that CRH levels in the maternal bloodstream increase threefold. "We can only speculate," says George Chrousos, the endocrinologist who led the NIH study, "but we think it helps women go through the stress of pregnancy, labor, and delivery."
But what happens after birth, when the placenta is gone? Chrousos and his colleagues monitored CRH levels in 17, women from the last trimester to a year after they gave birth. All the women had low levels of CRH - as low as seen in some forms of depression - in the six weeks following birth. The seven women with the lowest levels felt depressed.
Chrousos suspects that CRH levels are temporarily low in new mothers because CRH from the placenta disrupts the feedback system that regulates normal production of the hormone. During pregnancy, when CRH levels are high in the bloodstream, the hypothalamus releases less CRH. After birth, however, when this supplementary source of CRH is gone, it takes a while for the hypothalamus to get the signal that it needs to start making more CRH.
"This finding gives reassurance to people that postpartum depression is a transient phenomenon," says Chrousos. "It also suggests that there is a biological cause."
COPYRIGHT 1995 Discover
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
So anyways, I obviously am at the very start of making any decision based on this, but was wondering what others thought? I definitly would much rather use something that is not only natural but is 100% from my own body, rather then take foriegn chemicals if ppd were to be an occurance. I know some people think the whole idea is gross, but that doesn't really make since to me, since this isn't a foriegn substance, nor is it a substance that is not meant to be ingested, since we know that most mammals do eat the birth placenta anyways and many cultures ingest it after brith as a normal traditional part of post partum care.
