The Joy of Placenta

Okay, this may be a squeamish topic for some... But there ARE people out there who DO keep their placenta after giving birth to their children... Some bury them, some keep them in the freezer (and dunno do what), some make art printworks out of them, some cook them and eat them!

i'm not one of the brave ones who dare to make spaghetti sauce out of placenta meat and eat it with pasta(!!!), but i was very intrigued by the rumoured nutritional qualities of placenta and hey, it is said that all mammals eat their own placenta, right? After experiencing a terribly long and tiring recovery period for my first birth, i decided that i would try and harness the nutritional qualities of my second placenta to aid in my recovery from my second birth...

Thanks to the internet and a friend that i made from Asiaparents Forum who shared with me her experience with preparing placenta, this is what i learnt to do with it:

First, you have to freeze or chill the placenta as soon as possible after delivery :-) As my second child was born at home, i really wanted to chuck it into the freezer right after it popped out but... my doctor indicated that he wanted to examine the placenta at the hospital so my doula put it into a freezer bag with ice packs (which she had prepared in advance) and took it to the hospital for us. (She later took it home to freeze it for us and then sent it back to my place after my discharge from hospital)

Next, you have to clean it really well. (If chilled, prepare the placenta as soon as possible so it is "fresh". If frozen, of course must thaw first lah...) My confinement nanny graciously helped me to do this. We weren't really sure if there was a "proper" method of washing the placenta so we just rinsed it several times until the water ran clear (i.e. slightly pink instead of dark red). There was a huge blood clot/bloody tissue which my nanny threw away but in retrospect, i wasn't sure if we were supposed to keep that piece of blood thing :-b

This is what a cleaned placenta looks like

Now, some people find the smell of placenta a little urrgh, so the nice folks at Eu Yan Sang (actually somebody called Mr Ang who is quite knowledgeable about placenta preparation) gave me a small packet of herbs to use with it:

After squeezing half a lemon over the placenta and adding a capful of DOM (if you like), throw the herbs over the placenta together with a few slices of ginger (all these will help to dispel the unpleasant smell):

Squeezing the lemon in

What it looks like just before steaming

The next thing to do is to steam it over low heat for 20 minutes on each side (i.e. you steam it for 20 minutes, then turn the placenta over and steam again for another 20 minutes):

After the first 20 minutes

After steaming is completed on both sides - the placenta shrinks quite a bit!

Now what you need to do is to wait for it to cool down a bit and then slice it into thin pieces - as thin as you can - sort of like making beef jerky:

It really should be thinner than this - would make the drying process much easier!

Place the placenta strips on wax paper or a metal tray to dry out in the sun (best method), in an air-conditioned room (okay but watch out for dust and ants) or in a food dehydrator/oven on lowest setting.

This is how much one placenta yields - doesn't look like alot huh?

Drying the placenta strips on a metal tray under a light

You have to make sure that the strips are completely dry (feeling brittle to the touch) before pounding them into powder for consumption. Some people choose to eat this powder by, e.g. adding it to soup while cooking. i preferred to have it sent to Eu Yan Sang where they powdered the dried strips for me and then encapsulated the powder together with some ginseng for my consumption:

The final product!

Tip: Try encapsulating the placenta powder together with some ginseng (pao sheng) or cordyceps if you don't want the smell of placenta to be too overpowering.....