Placenta Medicine: My Story

by Tiffany Rosenbrock

© 2008 Midwifery Today, Inc. All rights reserved.

[Editor's note: This article first appeared in Midwifery Today Issue 88, Winter 2008.]
Photos provided by the author

I remember the day my midwife told me about placenta medicine, I cried. I loved that birth had so many blessings to offer our family, and this was completely new to me. I was so excited when Patricia told me she would gladly encapsulate my placenta for me and that taking it would ease the symptoms of postpartum depression (PPD) after the birth. Patricia Couch is an amazing midwife. With five kids and a demanding position at the birth center, she still finds time to help mamas like me honor our amazing placentas, and this is our story.

At 4:17 am on October 14, 2007, my son Grey Fox was blissfully born in the water at Sacred Waters Community Birthing Center in Eugene, Oregon. I was blessed with a beautiful, gentle, peaceful waterbirth with my partner and my two-year-old son. The midwives were respectful of our wishes and let us birth unassisted, the way we needed to. They were trusting and supportive of us as a family in labor and they allowed us to have the birth of our dreams! Our birth was a sacred experience and everyone there was in tune with our baby’s song.

They waited for the “first mother,” tugging on the cord. Both midwives asked me to try to expel her. Finally I just reached inside myself and grabbed our placenta, and my son’s nurturer was born into my hands and lifted out of the water, just like my sweet baby! I was amazed at the beauty of the placenta. I couldn’t believe that it had just been thrown away after our first birth. Leaving the cord and placenta intact for as long as possible felt so right to me! We spent a little over an hour in the tub after the birth. I think about 45 minutes of it was spent waiting for the placenta; the rest of the time I just held both placenta and baby in my hands and floated them about in the water. I watched my new baby play with his cord and rub his face against it as he had in my womb. I touched all the veins and nubs of the cord and placenta. I put my hand inside the amniotic sac where my child had grown all these months. I smelled that wonderful smell of birth. No one was there to sanitize the experience; it was so sensual.

Later in the day Patricia brought in a great thick paper to make placenta prints. Because of my waterbirth, all the blood had been washed off of the placenta, so we painted it! The prints turned out beautiful. The tree of life on the placenta is truly remarkable and I loved that we were honoring our baby’s “first mother” this way.

About 12 hours after the birth, when we were preparing to leave the birth center, Patricia helped me sever that sacred connection between me and my son—not with a knife, but with fire. We slowly burned through the cord with two candles; it was so magical to watch the cord pop and sizzle with life. I like thinking about how my baby was born into water, separated from me with fire and embraced by this loving earth!

We would have left the placenta intact and done a complete lotus birth, leaving the placenta attached to baby until it’s dry and he kicks it off on his own, but I wanted Patricia to make me medicine. She did just that! A few days after the birth at one of many home visits, Patricia brought me a jar full of my encapsulated placenta! Just in time, too, because I was having extraordinary mood swings and after-pains. Within a few days of ingesting my placenta, I started to feel much better. I’ve struggled with depression in the past and this was so much better than any antidepressant medication I’ve ever taken.

What an amazing organ! And what a shame that it’s tossed in the garbage every day in hospitals! I think that every woman should have her placenta encapsulated. It should just be a part of the birthing process. Our bodies are making their own medicine—amazing medicine!

I know my body and my baby made this medicine just for me. I was immediately soothed by the capsules, and my baby blues ended within the first few days. My energy started coming back, my milk came in full force, the after-pains faded, the bleeding got much lighter, my irritability went away and I was able to enjoy my new baby. My son seemed even calmer and happier after I started taking my encapsulated placenta. No wonder other mammals eat their placentas immediately after birth.

Taking my placenta caused no negative side effects and the positive effects were amazing. I feel so blessed to have learned about this medicine and grateful that I didn’t suffer from PPD this time around. I was able to breastfeed my new baby. I even had enough milk to start pumping regularly for my toddler. I know the hormones from the capsules helped fill my breasts with healthy yummy milk for my babies.

I feel sorry for women who suffer from PPD and I regret that so few know about this option. What if the only reason mamas have PPD is because our bodies need all the hormones in our placentas after the exhaustion and great transition of birth? What if every woman had her placenta encapsulated instead being prescribed a bottle of pills? I think depression would decline, breastfeeding rates would increase and greedy pharmaceutical and formula companies would be out the massive profit they make off our ignorance.

I took only about a third of my capsules after my son’s birth and still have the rest in my freezer. I take them every now and then when I feel emotionally drained or need a boost to my milk supply. I’m saving at least half for menstrual pains and eventually for menopause.

Some day I plan to tell my son about the medicine he made for me by being born and how his birth was wonderful and empowering. I don’t believe I’ll ever need another antidepressant because he healed me. For now I watch him grow, knowing that every day is a blessing and loving every minute of it. With PPD, I would have missed out on so much of those precious first moments.

Don’t let another mother suffer! Tell someone you love about the gifts and blessings of the Placenta today!

For more information on placentophagy, please visit http://placentabenefits.info/ or read Placenta: The Gift of Life, by Cornelia Enning, available at Midwifery Today’s Web site, www.midwiferytoday.com/books/placenta.asp. For more on the birth center or midwife in this story please visit www.SacredWatersBirthingCenter.com or www.pattycakebirthingservices.com.

View more placenta and cord photos that accompany this article.

Tiffany Rosenbrock is a 23-year-old Sacred Waters mama from Eugene, Oregon, who loves life. She spends her days with her soul mate EG, raising their two sons Grey and Sevyn. She is a writer, artist and mother who aspires to someday be a midwife’s assistant and doula, or a gentle birth educator.

If you enjoyed this article, you'll enjoy Midwifery Today magazine! Subscribe now!