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 news to me. I was so excited when Patricia told me she would gladly encapsulate my placenta for me. Patricia is an amazing midwife, with five kids and a birth center she still finds time to help Mamas like me honor our amazing placentas, and this is our story…….
On October 14th, at 4:17am 2007 my son Grey Fox was blissfully born in the water at Sacred Waters Communty Birthing Center in Eugene, OR. I was blessed with a beautiful, peaceful waterbirth with my partner and my two year old son. The midwives were respectful of our wishes and let us birth unassisted in the water, the way we needed to. Our birth was a sacred expierance and everyone there was in tune with our babies song.
They waited for the “first mother”, tugging on the cord, both midwives asking me to try to expell her. Then finally I just reached inside myself and grabbed our placenta, and my son’s loving nurturer was born into my hands and lifted out of the water, just like my sweet baby! I was amazed at how beautiful the placenta is, I could not believe it was just thrown away at our first birth. Leaving the cord and placenta intact for a while 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 waiting for the placenta, the rest of the time was spent just holding both placenta and baby in my hands and floating 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 viens and nubs of the cord and placenta, I put my hand inside the amniotic sack were my child had grown all these months. I smelled that wonderful smell of birth, no one was there to sanitize the expierance, it was so sensual.
Later in the day Patricia brought in this great thick paper to make placenta prints. Because of my water birth, all of the blood had been washed off the placenta, so we painted it! The prints turned out beautifully, the tree of life on the placenta is truely remarkable, and I loved that we were honoring our baby’s “first mother” this way. Then, 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 a candle. 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, and 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 is dry and he kicks it off on his own, but I wanted Patricia to make me capsules. She did just that! Just in time too, because I was having extraordinary mood swings, and afterpains.
Within a few days of taking my placenta, I started to feel much better. I have struggled with depression in the past and this was much better than any anti-depression medication I have ever taken. What an amazing organ! And what a shame it is tossed in the garbage everyday in hospitals! I think 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 immediatley soothed by the medicine, and my baby blues ended within three days of taking my placenta.My erergy started coming back, my milk came in full force, the afterpains faded, the bleeding got much lighter, my irritabity went away, and I was able to enjoy my new baby. My son even seemed calmer and happier after I stared taking my encapsulated placenta. No wonder animals eat thier placenta’s immediately after birthing!
Someday I plan to tell my son about the medicine he made for me by being born, how I’ll never need another anti-depressant because he healed me, and how nature always provides for us. For now I watch him grow knowing everyday is a blessing and loving every minute of it. With post pardem depression, I would have missed out on so much of those precious first weeks without the aid of my placenta medicine. All women should know about this, it’s so wrong that this isn’t always done for every Mama. It’s so important to honor our placenta’s and treat birth like the sacred, amazing event that it is!
thank you for supporting placenta encapsulation and for more information on Placentophagy please visit https://placentabenefits.info/
tiffany