Polly Wood

I was just nineteen when I first noticed the glow which emanates from a pregnant woman.  I remember feeling giddy and energized merely by the sight of her on the subway.  This goddess of a stranger left me awe-struck and humbled.  From then on, every time I saw a pregnant woman I felt like a magnet.  I felt compellingly drawn to pregnancy, and deeply certain that although I didn’t know the first thing about birth, I was meant to be near it.

 

Fast forward ten years, and I am celebrating the blessed birth of my beautiful daughter.  By this time I had become a birth doula, assisting in hospital and home births, creating over fifty belly casts, teaching birth art workshops and mother-baby yoga.  I returned to college with a ten month-old baby and brought the wisdom of women’s birth into my writings to complete my undergraduate degree.  In graduate school I saw that pregnancy and childbirth are two of many women’s cross-cultural rites-of-passage which harness our inherent potential as life-givers, healers and cultural creators (not to mention our ability to embody the sacred!).

 

As a birth and women’s rites (and rights) activist, discovering Placenta Benefits made perfect sense.  I have to admit, I was surprised that I hadn’t heard much of placentophagy sooner.  I understand how at first the thought of it might make one squeamish, but given the history, research and evidence supporting placenta ingestion and its overall health benefits to new mothers; it is nothing short of breathtaking.

 

Of course!  Sometimes the answers really do come from within!  Here we are a society that disposes of placenta as toxic waste, while truly, what we are throwing away is a gift: the amazing placenta - self-made, full of personalized hormones, iron, protein and vitamins critically needed in those first few days and weeks postpartum.

 

I am grateful to PBi for making this possible.  I see placenta ingestion as another intelligent step towards creating sustainability in our world.  As a Placenta Encapsulation Specialist®, I am honored to serve my local community by helping women and their families reclaim strong, healthy and happy postpartum experiences.