Plan to eat placenta? Consider this study

Should new mothers be eating their afterbirth? Many — including a growing subset of celebrity moms — say yes, praising potential health benefits like improvement in mood, nutritional fortitude, increased energy and better milk production. But according to a new paper examining all previous studies on the subject, there isn’t any real evidence to support those benefits. Perhaps more importantly, there’s no research on what the potential risks of consuming a human placenta might be.

The new study, published Thursday in Archives of Women’s Mental Health, came about when author Crystal Clark had some patients ask her opinion on the practice. Clark is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a psychiatrist specializing in reproduction-related mood disorders at Northwestern’s Asher Center for the Study and Treatment of Depressive Disorders, and her patients wanted to know if placental capsules — ostensibly taken to improve their mood — would interact with the antidepressants Clark had prescribed them.

“I found myself really confused by the question,” Clark said.

She — and her colleagues in obstetrics, who she asked about the practice — knew of no clinical studies on this.

That got Clark thinking: Where were the women getting their information on placentophagy, and what was the evidence in support of it? When she went looking, there wasn’t much to be found. Her attempt to have an informed conversation with her patients led to a full-blown study of all the available literature. And Clark’s conclusion is that it’s all bunk.

In a post on her blog, actress Mayim Bialik (who has a doctorate in neuroscience but has come out in favor of alternative medicine and against vaccination) makes all of the common arguments: Tons of non-human mammals eat their placentas immediately after giving birth, so it must be a healthy step that humans have learned to ignore.

“Of all the studies available, only one showed potential for benefit,” Clark said. “And it showed the potential for pain reduction immediately after labor. But that particular study, although quite rigorous and convincing, suggested that the placenta had to be eaten right after birth, completely, in its entirety, and that it couldn’t be stored or heated,” she said. “That’s not what human women are doing.”

And as it happens, most of the evidence cited in support of placental consumption is based on studies showing benefits in animals, not humans. Across all available studies, Clark said, only one worked with humans.