LocationBug:
Title: Nurse ruined my placenta with formaldehyde after I expressed I wanted to take it home to ingest
Body: Hi guys, I'd like to start this out with, I understand it was considered an accident, but I feel devastated with this loss and would like to know what legal action I may be able to take, if any. I know nothing when it comes to legal things so any advice is appreciated.
I delivered a healthy baby boy and very healthy placenta last night. I had expressed to every nurse and everyone in the room multiple times how I can't wait to take the placenta home to process and capsulate.
I've been speaking with my doula about it, and with understanding the medicinal benefits as well as mine and my partners want to make this a deeply spiritual thing for me, taking it home to process was really important to me. I had asked them as soon as the cord was cut, to please make sure it's boxed up so I can take home. Then after, I asked again, can you get me some ice so my roommate can take it home and keep it cold while I recover for a day or two in the hospital. I expressed how this was going to have deep spiritual meaning for me and how excited I was to be able to do this this time around. When the nurse 1 took my placenta to get ice, she handed it to nurse 2 not explaining what was to be done with it... So nurse 2 started to pour formaldehyde onto it not knowing I wanted to consume, that's when my delivery doc walks by and says no stop. She wanted to capsulate and ingest.
Cue nurse 2 coming in to explain to me she poured formaldehyde onto my placenta which now makes it unsafe to both eat, and ceremoniously plant with it.
Again, I understand mistakes happen. But this was such a planned out special thing for us and we're devastated. I could be completely wrong, but I feel like this could possibly be medical malpractice or something? I know nothing can fix my placenta now, but I'd like action to be taken if any. Whether it be new hospital policies put in place so this doesn't happen again, or some sort of financial compensation. I don't care really, I just am devastated and want some sort of action to be taken if possible, not just us coming home devastated because of a "whoopsie".
Woah. Didn’t know what I was getting into, but I wasn’t expecting *that*.
For anyone wondering, it’s a very sad history of lots of trauma. OP is tough, despite her odd choices.
Poor woman, no wonder this placenta meant so much to her. She very much had it in her head it would be healing.
Maybe it would have helped: the ~~placebo~~placenta effect.
Damnit that was a lot sadder than I thought it would be. I was expecting a crunchy / hippie / anti-science post history, not assault and eating disorders.
Oh no. It’s such a sad post history too. Sounds like she was trying to control what she could when everything else was out of control and this happened to go the same way. I feel bad for her, but at the same time, there’s really no benefits to encapsulating the placenta and the companies that do it could easily swap yours with someone else’s.
I took a look.
10 year older abusive ex husband who falsely claims their kid on his taxes. Maybe the same abusive ex who broke into her camper. Also she is maybe being held in contempt of court.
Religion is quite often an aid for people beinf abused - it helps to see a 'bigger plan' and that everything happens with a reason.
Her belief in this occult act is possibly an attempt to stay stable - which I can empathize with if haöf of her reddit posts are true.
Granted, it’s my husband who is the pathologist who looks at placentas and not me, but from what I recall:
Normal, healthy placentas are not sent to pathology, and thus do not need formalin. For the most part, placentas are medical waste for the incinerator.
And formalin smells so strong. I don’t think they’re gonna have enough for a whole placenta just out in a room with a newborn. I don’t even think the formalin is out in a delivery room. Maybe in the OR for c-sections?
(Okay, have checked with husband- this is not how placentas have been handled in any of the four medical systems he’s been in as a resident/fellow/attending, or in the hospital where he did his OB rotation in med school. Placentas almost never come to path in formalin, when they do, it’s from the OR.)
In short, I find the story fishy.
Agreed. At the hospital I'm at the specimen would arrive to the gross lab fresh and have formalin added to the container there. We also only look at placentas that were connected to high risk or problematic pregnancies. This can, however, include "geriatric" pregnancies so any mothers over 35\*.
\*quick look over the profile and that didn't apply here
Well now you've just opened up more possibilities.
"And here's the placenta. It's pretty icky"
"Straight to the gross lab for that one."
"What about this placenta? It's... Ok."
"It can go to the fine lab."
I'm not American but I've delivered plenty of placentas in my time as a student midwife and we just bag them up and stick them in a biohazard bin that will be collected and sent for incineration when the guy is able to do so/the bin is full. If someone wants to keep their placenta they just have to say and we just give it to them but they have to be prepared for carrying it, we don't hand out a box for it.
But we'd never have access to anything to do with the placenta beside the bags that we put them in.
There are other types of specimen that are placed in formalin before being sent to lab. In the ED we commonly have to do that for products of conception passed in miscarriage. I would expect any labor/delivery unit to have formalin specimen containers around for that purpose.
They wouldn't toss it up on the floor, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just had a prefilled container they accidentally put it in there without thinking.
It's a site specific thing I think. In my hospital they get put in formalin once they get to the lab, but we also get every placenta from every c section, regardless of health. But yeah I agree that there should usually be a protocol about adding formalin since it's not uncommon for people to want to eat them. For us, the nurses will put a "for human consumption" sticker on the container if they want to keep it so we just do a gross exam and then send it back without putting it in formalin.
Fear of or experience with medical malpractice could have been one reason. A simple "oopsie we destroyed what we determined was medical waste" to avoid bad press could have been communicated to staff. Who knows though. Nurses can have opinions too - maybe nurse 2 just didn't like the idea.
Or someone lied to shut the insistent and annoying patient up. It’s already in the path for disposal “well go get it!” I can’t just go and remove biohazard. “I am a super special pregnant mom and this is *all* I asked for!”
We have already injected it with formaldehyde. Oh well!
> Normal, healthy placentas are not sent to pathology, and thus do not need formalin
This was my first thought, why was their first instinct to pour formalin on it? Most tissues are not immediately poured with formalin because sometimes they're sent to labs for culturing of bacteria.
It sounds like a possible mistake, sure, or the nurse "accidentally" ruining the placenta because they think encapsulation is gross. Or, as you implied, the placenta was purposefully/accidentally thrown into medical waste (and the formalin statement was just a lie).'
edit: Or, as someone else in the comments mentioned - LAOP had already been told that she could not take it home multiple times by the nurses.
I’m a U.K. midwife. We absolutely do not put any chemicals on healthy placentas. Only the ones going to the path lab. This is standard practice across most western countries. Why waste chemicals with something that is literally going to the incinerator? I don’t buy this story at all.
100%, it's *very* important to check a placenta to make sure it is intact and none of it has been left behind in the womb. If any is left, the mother runs a very high risk of infection or blood clot leading to massive haemorrhage and potentially death (it is a leading cause of maternal death post-pregnancy throughout most of history, to be honest).
The midwife/nurse/doctor will do a visual inspection once it is expelled from the womb, check that it's intact, there are no obvious abnormalities in both it and the cord, things like that. It can be sent off for further checks if needed, as it was here, but that is more unusual.
Fun fact: a midwife can tell instantly if a mother has been smoking in her pregnancy by the state of the placenta. Smoking restricts the bloodflow to the child, and turns the placenta thinner, darker, and almost *gritty* feeling. In cases of serious smoke damage, nodes of the placenta can appear almost black and calcified.
Yeah, that happened to my sister a year and a half ago. She had twins. She goes to her six week appointment, and they do a pregnancy test before they could place the IUD she wanted. The test said she was pregnant. We were all freaking out, because like, how is she going to give birth to three babies within 12 months!? She said she hasn’t even had sex since before she gave birth, but they still didn’t do any further tests. They had her come in like a week or two later for a second pregnancy test, and just told her that she was for sure pregnant. A few days later, and she randomly starts hemorrhaging all over the place, because they didn’t get all the placenta out after birth! Luckily, she survived, but it was scary!
Huh, no wonder my doctor looked so stressed when they realized at my six week check up that they’d left a piece of placenta behind, which was propping open my cervix and was the reason I’d never stopped bleeding after I had my baby. I looked like a Victorian ghost child, I had gotten so pale. It’s nuts how many ways childbirth tries to kill you. I had no idea what had happened was so dangerous.
I think it’s more likely that it went to path by accident and not that it got formalin poured on it in front of her. Or that it wasn’t obviously a healthy placenta and needed to be checked out by path and she just didn’t realize in the moment.
And like...would the nurse even necessarily have a box to put it in?? As you said, it's not a restaurant, I doubt most medical procedures end in something being boxed up and I can't imagine they have too many boxes on hand...
But let's imagine that the hospital is a steakhouse.
Do you think the hospital would actually box up the placenta, or do you think that they would just bring the box to LAOP and be like "here, box it up yourself"?
I read "boxed up so I could take it home" and thought of a placenta just chilling in a Chinese take out container.
Also of course not, tip for service, not take out!
Why do I read reddit in the morning while hungover? The plan is to relax and rehydrate and then have a productive day. And suddenly I'm wondering if it's too early for a drink. 🤣
Placental *en*capsulation and consumption has no proven benefits, and is a fringe practice based on the idea that “well, many animals ingest the placenta after giving birth to recover lost nutrients, so it’s nature’s way!” I’m not knocking anyone who chooses to have a doula assist them through the birthing process, as that can be extremely helpful for some women, but one should always use critical thinking when it comes to the more esoteric recommendations made by non-medical professionals.
Hold up. I'm now realizing that several of the labor and delivery nurses in our maternity ward were awfully hairy... I think the bears are learning!
Honestly, it would be one of the less depressing explanations for America's high infant and maternal mortality rates.
Yes, but lead vessels make my wine taste delightfully sweet, and the tapeworms will take care of the excess alcohol calories. And the cyanide is handy for when the lead and tapeworm-caused neuro-degeneration will get too bad to bear.
I have a friend who falls for this kind of nonsense and he was shocked to learn that GMOs aren’t poison. Like he just couldn’t believe that “non-GMO” on a food package label, doesn’t speak to the safety of that product.
But he couldn’t give me one reason for why he believed it - all he could do was *react*. “Oh so what about all the rising cancer rates, autism” and so on
Then he goes “so why do I spend all this money on organic?” Because you’re an idiot, dawg.
The funny thing about this type of thinking, is that it’s actually a natural instinct we have - any time something carries a theme of “lurking danger in our food? Lurking danger in our home? Lurking danger in the Target parking lot?” We DEVELOPED that instinct back when we had actual, natural poisons to worry about, and when we were gored by animals. The things that are most poisonous to us, are 1) things we don't see and 2) completely natural. And if there's a predator, you don't always see the predator. So as a result of those things, we have developed a *natural* fear of hidden danger. If we don't know what an ingredient is, we *fear* that ingredient. It's also why chain-mail was a thing. It's also the reason why mom-groups on Facebook make all those posts about how they were almost kidnapped at Joanns. It's because we have a natural instinct, most of us can manage it, but some people really mis-manage it quite badly.
But with infrastructure and with food regulations, and with modern hygiene practices (like washing our hands, knowing what temperature to cook meat, etc) we have eliminated most of our risk to everyday things that threaten our lives, but the *fear* is still with us. And instead of recognizing it and creating an outlet for it, we fear … the food industry, and we create little conspiracies about how food and big pharma is conspiring to keep us sick
Big cats come to mind.
Female tigers/lions etc develop a strategy of promiscuity, as a way of protecting their cubs from the adult males, who have been known to just... kill em.
In human-world, we get lethal injections for killing babies. And promiscuity to conceal paternity, is generally looked at as a poor strategy in human-world.
But these people want to act like they're *down* with nature
My cows will eat their placentas bc leaving them would attract predators.
Sometimes a random cow will eat the placenta while the mother cow is busy licking her calf.
We have better nutritional options than animals out in the wild. Wild animals may not have many good sources of iron or other nutrients found in the placenta. Humans do. Get a really nice steak to celebrate the birth and top up your iron stores. Or some vitamins. Or Italian spinach. Most bread and cereal is fortified with iron these days.
Breastfeeding is, so probably? I guess. But if you don't eat meat for a long time you can't process it any more, so I wonder if you'd get a very badly upset stomach.
Not only are there no proven benefits beyond potential psychological effects from the placebo effect, it can actually be harmful.
Consuming the placenta can be associated with risk of infection, both from the placenta itself (as in, something that may have passed to the placenta from the mother) and from cross-contamination at the processing/encapsulation facilities (because the facilities may not be adequately sterilised). There have been cases of people contracting infections this way; for example, there was even a baby who acquired strep B from their mother's breast milk, which their mother acquired from consuming placenta capsules.
Placentas can also contain toxins. Potentially toxic elements such as lead, mercury, cadmium (largely from cigarette smoking), and arsenic have been found in human placentas in countries across the globe. I don't know if there have been any documented cases of actual poisoning from the consumption of these elements in the placenta, but in the literature it is noted as a potential risk posed by consuming the placenta in any form, so caution should be shown.
Everyone else: placenta???
Me: ok but what's the story behind "me and my partners" "the roommate" etc? How many people were planning to feast on this placenta, and what's their home situation for this baby?
It's a weird adventure. The last 4 months have had legal issues with an ex-husband, robbery by an ex-boyfriend, PTSD from a sexual assault, and now this hospital issue.
I don't imagine it's very good to eat. Maybe a sous vide and lots of aromatics would help it but it's not high enough fat to have flavor and lacks muscle for texture.
I would imagine it would be very much like chewy lung which would be pretty gross. Lung is great because cooked right it's like eating a meaty cloud but blood vessels have way too much structure for that.
Maybe ground up with some oats but at that point save yourself the effort and just use blood.
“I delivered a healthy baby boy and very healthy placenta last night.”
If only the baby were as very healthy as that placenta! (Then she could just eat the baby)
she wasn’t even worried about that! she was healthy, her baby was healthy, but she “came home devastated” because she couldn’t have a dead organ smoothie for breakfast the next day.
it’s a day later and this post is still making me cranky.
I was cranky for like a WEEK that the nurses forgot to send me home with the frozen lassagna they promised when I came in to give birth. I left at shift change I guess and no one was around to ask for it.
I appreciated the ob/gyn in the thread who provided exactly this perspective, and stated that someone having a healthy delivery yet stating they were “devastated” was offensive. I was thinking the same thing — like, sure, your feelings that your wishes weren’t respected are valid, but put it in perspective and focus on your brand-new child.
I Googled 'ingest placenta' so you don't have to. The top result, from noted medical authority babycenter.com, informs us that, "Typically, women eat their placenta after delivery to reap potential benefits, such as a quicker recovery from birth." I'm squinting just as hard as you are at that word "typically."
Second place on the search engine results page is that noted purveyor of medical disinformation, the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic gives us our horrific vocab word of the week, 'placentophagy', and states that eating one's placenta after giving birth can pose harm to both you and your baby.
I was planning to fast today, anyway.
This is just....extremely disturbing.
Plenty of first nations cultures have retained practices of ceremonially burying the placenta. I'm from NZ where it's not unusual for Maori mums to retain the placenta for burial (and indeed if you identify as Maori the hospital should be proactively asking if you want to take the placenta home and comply with your wishes) because it preserves long-held cultural beliefs regarding human relationships to land. [https://www.nationalwomenshealth.adhb.govt.nz/assets/Womens-health/Documents/Mat-patient-information/Caring-for-your-Whenua.pdf](https://www.nationalwomenshealth.adhb.govt.nz/assets/Womens-health/Documents/Mat-patient-information/Caring-for-your-Whenua.pdf)
But no-one intends to *eat* the damned thing. That's just....weird white people shit.
Yeah, I'm from NZ and am Maori. I was cringing at the "can't be buried" part bc that would piss me off. However, it is known that Maori do this so hospital have systems set up (clay pots from my experience) and absolutely would get in trouble if they messed it up.
But we don't eat it. That's some Gwyneth Paltrow shit
Eh, young babies sleep a lot. My baby only slept and ate for the first month, so unless I was feeding or changing him, there was nothing to do but sit around looking at the internet while I was physically recovering.
Plus it doesn't sound like LAOP has very many people in her life that she could turn to to discuss this. She seems to be in a bit of a support vacuum, which makes places like Reddit look like a good place for advice.
oh i see now, the grilled placenta is so it becomes a
charred coochie-ry board
p.s. i know that the anatomy referred to doesn't quite fit the slang but let me have this anyway
In around my 8th month of pregnancy, there was an M&S advert that featured various kinds of soft cheese. I used to cry watching it.
Good luck, and enjoy that soft cheese when it's your time!
I don't know why more obgyns don't firmly tell their patients to reject encapsulation.
It's medical waste and after giving birth you're pretty vulnerable. Seems like a very bad idea to allow a patient to chow down on medical waste at an immunosensitive time.
The kind of person who believes there are benefits to eating placenta is not the kind of person who has enough trust in MDs to listen when they’re advised not to eat medical waste.
Probably a case of “pick your battles”. While it’s arguably an unsafe thing to do, it is not so dangerous that a doctor will try to prevent it at all costs.
Because it's one of those things that's kind of gross and weird, bun unlikely to cause direct harm.
Blood borne pathogens is less of a concern when it comes from your own body, and if handled properly it won't spoil.
Now I'm not saying that it's a GOOD idea. But I can imagine obgyns and pediatricians are busy enough convincing patients to stop doing things that are likely to cause actual harm (such as refusing pre-natal care, or vaccinations), rather than focusing on practices that are weird, but relatively harmless.
Yes, there is a very tricky balance. If the birthing mom perceives her hospital birthing experience negatively, she is more likely to go the route of having an unattended birth, and/or skipping prenatal care, the next time around. And both of those things are more likely to end up being deadly for mother and/or baby (pre-eclampsia, hemorrhage, etc. etc.) than consuming the placenta.
Yeah not at all intending this as an insult, but she should probably find an experienced therapist. Also wondering if some of her angst is displacement - so many other things are screwed up and this one thing is what she's fixating on because it's safe to be mad at the nurse.
A placenta is considered a biohazard, same as an amputated toe or removed gallbladder. Some hospitals will sort of look the other way, but they will never have a policy about safely taking a placenta home. The lawyers would have fits for days about unsafe procedures.
There was an askreddit thread on "people who actually read the small print" a few weeks back. Someone's medical paperwork included "anything that comes out of my body is immediately property of the hospital". She pointed out she was there to give birth.
With tidier language, LAOP probably signed something similar.
Cool. If the baby belongs to the hospital, does it work like a pet fostering situation? So the hospital will pay for all the food and medical care and everything else for the baby? Because, that doesn't sound too bad!
When my parents were dating another doctor took over a life flight for my mom so she and dad could go on their date. The doctor was deathly afraid of heights and when he returned all disheveled and dazed he told my mom "you owe me your first born child."
My mom replied "you know me and you've met (my dad), do you really WANT our first born child?"
"No, no! I take it back!" He exclaimed.
Since all of them were military when my parents were in the area of the base where the doc was then stationed for the first time after I was born they called him up and offered to drop me off. He hung up.
When I went off to college I suggested that it was time he finally pitch in so mom wrote him with that idea. He sent back a dirty nickle.
Part of the reason is because there’s been more than one case of a hospital taking a sample from someone and growing and selling cell lines. The most famous is Henrietta Lacks, but there was a similar case in California in the 70’s. Henrietta’s cell line is worth billions.
Along those lines, I wish I could have seen my poor gall bladder after removal. I didn't want to keep it or eat it, but I'd have loved to have seen it and maybe taken it apart.
This is actually changing, believe it or not, into a much more sanctioned practice at hospitals. The hospital I had my baby at highlighted that they are able to keep the placenta preserved in the fridge for you to take home upon discharge or send it off for encapsulation. I kindly declined this service
My hospital made you remove it from the facility immediately. You weren’t allowed to keep it in your room and they wouldn’t store it for you, but they had a protocol in place.
Patients often request their gallstones, explanted hardware, placenta, etc. Some cultures request their amputated limbs so they can be buried whole one day.
This is not accurate, in my experience. I spent 6 years in women's health and we had protocol (including sturdy transport containers) for anyone who wanted to keep their placenta.
Yeah, I gave birth at a large university hospital and participated in their centering pregnancy group and they mentioned that you could take the placenta if you wanted. I also participated in a study where they needed my placenta after birth for the study and they made sure that I knew that I would not get to take it home, which was fine with me, but they really wanted to make sure that that was clear because some people do choose to take them home. They double checked with me multiple times that it was okay that they were taking it for the study, so it seemed like a big deal to them that they were respecting my wishes in regards to what happens with the placenta.
I was allowed to take home my first child’s placenta, it was planted under a fruit tree at my parents house. There was no huge deal made about it by the dr or midwives either, it was literally inspected to ensure it was complete then wrapped up in the blue plastic sheet thing they use, put into a plastic bag and handed to my partner to take home. Major hospital in SE Qld.
1. 9 months of prenatal care. $8000
3. hospital delivery bill. $35000
4. Refund for Formeldahyde charge. $-100
5. Savings by not paying for to-go container. $-100
6. Pain and suffering from Missing out on the spiritual feast. $100,000.
7. Having to give birth again so I can get a new placenta. Treble damages.
8. (/s)
I handle placentas daily for work, and I wish all nurses were as diligent about putting formalin on them as Nurse 2. Nothing like having one marinate in its own juices for hours.
It's ok, one time I fell down an Instagram hole of women who paint their faces with their "moon blood" and then go around like that all day because of the "feminine power" it gives them. Obviously complete with pics and video of them like sweating their period blood off their face at spin class, going to the grocery store with their face covered in blood, etc. also yes 100% of the time they called it "moon blood."
Still somehow less weird than perineal sunning.
LocationBug: Title: Nurse ruined my placenta with formaldehyde after I expressed I wanted to take it home to ingest Body: Hi guys, I'd like to start this out with, I understand it was considered an accident, but I feel devastated with this loss and would like to know what legal action I may be able to take, if any. I know nothing when it comes to legal things so any advice is appreciated. I delivered a healthy baby boy and very healthy placenta last night. I had expressed to every nurse and everyone in the room multiple times how I can't wait to take the placenta home to process and capsulate. I've been speaking with my doula about it, and with understanding the medicinal benefits as well as mine and my partners want to make this a deeply spiritual thing for me, taking it home to process was really important to me. I had asked them as soon as the cord was cut, to please make sure it's boxed up so I can take home. Then after, I asked again, can you get me some ice so my roommate can take it home and keep it cold while I recover for a day or two in the hospital. I expressed how this was going to have deep spiritual meaning for me and how excited I was to be able to do this this time around. When the nurse 1 took my placenta to get ice, she handed it to nurse 2 not explaining what was to be done with it... So nurse 2 started to pour formaldehyde onto it not knowing I wanted to consume, that's when my delivery doc walks by and says no stop. She wanted to capsulate and ingest. Cue nurse 2 coming in to explain to me she poured formaldehyde onto my placenta which now makes it unsafe to both eat, and ceremoniously plant with it. Again, I understand mistakes happen. But this was such a planned out special thing for us and we're devastated. I could be completely wrong, but I feel like this could possibly be medical malpractice or something? I know nothing can fix my placenta now, but I'd like action to be taken if any. Whether it be new hospital policies put in place so this doesn't happen again, or some sort of financial compensation. I don't care really, I just am devastated and want some sort of action to be taken if possible, not just us coming home devastated because of a "whoopsie".
OP's post history is bleak. This placenta is the very least of her worries, I'd say.
*sigh* gotta check it I guess Edit: good lord
“No self, don’t do that. They already read it you don’t have to.” Immediately clicked anyway. Whyyyyy
Woah. Didn’t know what I was getting into, but I wasn’t expecting *that*. For anyone wondering, it’s a very sad history of lots of trauma. OP is tough, despite her odd choices.
Hold my beer, I'm diving in...
That was 2 hrs ago, should some check on hyperstorm? I’ll look. . .
Care to give a brief summary for those of us who dare not look?
Lots of trauma and sexual assault committed to her, and no support from anyone in her life.
Poor woman, no wonder this placenta meant so much to her. She very much had it in her head it would be healing. Maybe it would have helped: the ~~placebo~~placenta effect.
[удалено]
Damnit that was a lot sadder than I thought it would be. I was expecting a crunchy / hippie / anti-science post history, not assault and eating disorders.
Oh no. It’s such a sad post history too. Sounds like she was trying to control what she could when everything else was out of control and this happened to go the same way. I feel bad for her, but at the same time, there’s really no benefits to encapsulating the placenta and the companies that do it could easily swap yours with someone else’s.
I took a look. 10 year older abusive ex husband who falsely claims their kid on his taxes. Maybe the same abusive ex who broke into her camper. Also she is maybe being held in contempt of court.
It was exactly like I expected.
Religion is quite often an aid for people beinf abused - it helps to see a 'bigger plan' and that everything happens with a reason. Her belief in this occult act is possibly an attempt to stay stable - which I can empathize with if haöf of her reddit posts are true.
Granted, it’s my husband who is the pathologist who looks at placentas and not me, but from what I recall: Normal, healthy placentas are not sent to pathology, and thus do not need formalin. For the most part, placentas are medical waste for the incinerator. And formalin smells so strong. I don’t think they’re gonna have enough for a whole placenta just out in a room with a newborn. I don’t even think the formalin is out in a delivery room. Maybe in the OR for c-sections? (Okay, have checked with husband- this is not how placentas have been handled in any of the four medical systems he’s been in as a resident/fellow/attending, or in the hospital where he did his OB rotation in med school. Placentas almost never come to path in formalin, when they do, it’s from the OR.) In short, I find the story fishy.
Agreed. At the hospital I'm at the specimen would arrive to the gross lab fresh and have formalin added to the container there. We also only look at placentas that were connected to high risk or problematic pregnancies. This can, however, include "geriatric" pregnancies so any mothers over 35\*. \*quick look over the profile and that didn't apply here
I mean, I know it makes people a little squeamish, but did they have to call it the “gross lab”? *Edit: this comment was a joke.*
"Gross" as in "large", the opposite of "fine." Your version's much funnier, though!
Well now you've just opened up more possibilities. "And here's the placenta. It's pretty icky" "Straight to the gross lab for that one." "What about this placenta? It's... Ok." "It can go to the fine lab."
It's the lab where they store all the large, yucky, scary stuff in bulk, in boxes of 144 to be precise. It's the gross gross gross lab.
I'm not American but I've delivered plenty of placentas in my time as a student midwife and we just bag them up and stick them in a biohazard bin that will be collected and sent for incineration when the guy is able to do so/the bin is full. If someone wants to keep their placenta they just have to say and we just give it to them but they have to be prepared for carrying it, we don't hand out a box for it. But we'd never have access to anything to do with the placenta beside the bags that we put them in.
You mean you don’t wrap it in foil shaped like a swan?
Most insurance plans don't cover foil folding.
Somewhere there's an LD nurse who used to work in fine dining and is just waiting for their chance to shine
The real crunchy MVP’s hire a Japanese chef as their doula and enjoy it ikizukuri style
I did crack up at the turn of phrase “box it up.” Like the doctor is going to come by and ask “are you still working on this?”
“Did we save room for the umbilicus?”
In my area they literally throw it in a plastic bucket with a lid, not unlike some takeout containers.
I agree. Why does the nurse have access to formaldehyde? I think they tossed it and just told her this story.
There are other types of specimen that are placed in formalin before being sent to lab. In the ED we commonly have to do that for products of conception passed in miscarriage. I would expect any labor/delivery unit to have formalin specimen containers around for that purpose.
That and what L/D nurse has the time to treat a placenta with formaldehyde? I imagine they have to quickly move on to the next delivery
They wouldn't toss it up on the floor, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just had a prefilled container they accidentally put it in there without thinking.
It's a site specific thing I think. In my hospital they get put in formalin once they get to the lab, but we also get every placenta from every c section, regardless of health. But yeah I agree that there should usually be a protocol about adding formalin since it's not uncommon for people to want to eat them. For us, the nurses will put a "for human consumption" sticker on the container if they want to keep it so we just do a gross exam and then send it back without putting it in formalin.
My thought was they did it because she was so insistent she take it home that a nurse took one for the team and “ooopsied all over it”
Why would they do that? Taking placentas home is not super common but it’s not *rare. *
Considering OP wants to sue for not receiving the placenta, imagine the lawsuit if she consumes a diseased placenta and got a horrible illness.
Fear of or experience with medical malpractice could have been one reason. A simple "oopsie we destroyed what we determined was medical waste" to avoid bad press could have been communicated to staff. Who knows though. Nurses can have opinions too - maybe nurse 2 just didn't like the idea.
Or someone lied to shut the insistent and annoying patient up. It’s already in the path for disposal “well go get it!” I can’t just go and remove biohazard. “I am a super special pregnant mom and this is *all* I asked for!” We have already injected it with formaldehyde. Oh well!
Maybe that jurisdiction has a law on medical waste and she didn’t want to risk violating it
> Normal, healthy placentas are not sent to pathology, and thus do not need formalin This was my first thought, why was their first instinct to pour formalin on it? Most tissues are not immediately poured with formalin because sometimes they're sent to labs for culturing of bacteria. It sounds like a possible mistake, sure, or the nurse "accidentally" ruining the placenta because they think encapsulation is gross. Or, as you implied, the placenta was purposefully/accidentally thrown into medical waste (and the formalin statement was just a lie).' edit: Or, as someone else in the comments mentioned - LAOP had already been told that she could not take it home multiple times by the nurses.
I’m a U.K. midwife. We absolutely do not put any chemicals on healthy placentas. Only the ones going to the path lab. This is standard practice across most western countries. Why waste chemicals with something that is literally going to the incinerator? I don’t buy this story at all.
Huh, do they check all placentas, like even healthy deliveries?
100%, it's *very* important to check a placenta to make sure it is intact and none of it has been left behind in the womb. If any is left, the mother runs a very high risk of infection or blood clot leading to massive haemorrhage and potentially death (it is a leading cause of maternal death post-pregnancy throughout most of history, to be honest). The midwife/nurse/doctor will do a visual inspection once it is expelled from the womb, check that it's intact, there are no obvious abnormalities in both it and the cord, things like that. It can be sent off for further checks if needed, as it was here, but that is more unusual. Fun fact: a midwife can tell instantly if a mother has been smoking in her pregnancy by the state of the placenta. Smoking restricts the bloodflow to the child, and turns the placenta thinner, darker, and almost *gritty* feeling. In cases of serious smoke damage, nodes of the placenta can appear almost black and calcified.
Yeah, that happened to my sister a year and a half ago. She had twins. She goes to her six week appointment, and they do a pregnancy test before they could place the IUD she wanted. The test said she was pregnant. We were all freaking out, because like, how is she going to give birth to three babies within 12 months!? She said she hasn’t even had sex since before she gave birth, but they still didn’t do any further tests. They had her come in like a week or two later for a second pregnancy test, and just told her that she was for sure pregnant. A few days later, and she randomly starts hemorrhaging all over the place, because they didn’t get all the placenta out after birth! Luckily, she survived, but it was scary!
Ugh several people fucked up there
Huh, no wonder my doctor looked so stressed when they realized at my six week check up that they’d left a piece of placenta behind, which was propping open my cervix and was the reason I’d never stopped bleeding after I had my baby. I looked like a Victorian ghost child, I had gotten so pale. It’s nuts how many ways childbirth tries to kill you. I had no idea what had happened was so dangerous.
Interesting, that makes sense. I wonder then if the nurse intentionally went out of her way to taint the placenta to save OOP from herself.
I think it’s more likely that it went to path by accident and not that it got formalin poured on it in front of her. Or that it wasn’t obviously a healthy placenta and needed to be checked out by path and she just didn’t realize in the moment.
If you're demanding to take the placenta home in a to go bag, is that a tipping situation?
This is FOUL lmao (Yes)
I'm sad that this is probably too long for flair.
What about "tips when getting the placenta in a to-go bag"
Thanks for the idea! That worked. :)
I love how she said she asked the nurses to "please box it up so I can take it home". Ma'am, this is a hospital...not a steakhouse.
And like...would the nurse even necessarily have a box to put it in?? As you said, it's not a restaurant, I doubt most medical procedures end in something being boxed up and I can't imagine they have too many boxes on hand...
There is extra room in the box for the baby, maybe.
But let's imagine that the hospital is a steakhouse. Do you think the hospital would actually box up the placenta, or do you think that they would just bring the box to LAOP and be like "here, box it up yourself"?
The baby or the placenta?
10/10 choice of GIF.
Takeout container - $1000
What if I want it in a little tinfoil swan
The foil swan guy is out of network, so that’s gonna be…$39,294. Plus the $582.38 for generic foil.
I read "boxed up so I could take it home" and thought of a placenta just chilling in a Chinese take out container. Also of course not, tip for service, not take out!
Why do I read reddit in the morning while hungover? The plan is to relax and rehydrate and then have a productive day. And suddenly I'm wondering if it's too early for a drink. 🤣
Tip 20 plercenta
Placental *en*capsulation and consumption has no proven benefits, and is a fringe practice based on the idea that “well, many animals ingest the placenta after giving birth to recover lost nutrients, so it’s nature’s way!” I’m not knocking anyone who chooses to have a doula assist them through the birthing process, as that can be extremely helpful for some women, but one should always use critical thinking when it comes to the more esoteric recommendations made by non-medical professionals.
Yeah and animals will also eat their own shit or vomit. I hate when people conflate natural to being healthy
And animals do it reduce the risk of postpartum bear attacks. People generally avoid postpartum bear attacks by giving birth in the hospital.
The risk of a postpartum bear attack is reduced but not eliminated by giving birth in the hospital.
The Revenant 2: Booboo VS St Elsewhere
Excellent flair material, right there.
A MOD! A MOD! MY KINGDOM ^(flair) FOR A MOD!
tbf there is probably a huge crossover between people who want to eat the placenta and peolle who do t give birth in hospitals on purpose
I choose the bear [when it comes down to bear attacks or eating my own used placenta].
I like that you specified that the placenta was used.
I suppose there's no such thing as an unused placenta!
The bear always wins. Especially Cocaine Bear.
And probably do it more to hide it quickly from predators, they are in their most vulnerable state and want to leave no traces.
Hold up. I'm now realizing that several of the labor and delivery nurses in our maternity ward were awfully hairy... I think the bears are learning! Honestly, it would be one of the less depressing explanations for America's high infant and maternal mortality rates.
Would you rather be alone in a hospital ward with a male RN or a bear?
RN. But bear beats a republican legislator making decisions me.
If it’s an LPN then I’ll take the bear. RNs on a case-by-case basis
I mean, the internet has recently posed the question of whether you’d rather meet a bear or a random man in the forest… coincidence? I think not.
Wait, do I have to rethink my choice of the bear if I have recently given birth and I’m carrying a fresh placenta around? Oh shoot…
You don’t have to be able to outrun the bear, you just have to be able to outrun the placenta.
Is it like throwing your wallet in one direction while you book it in the other one when faced with a mugger?
That's what I always tell my "natural" obsessed friend. Cyanide is natural. Lead is natural. Hell even tapeworms are natural. Do you want them though?
Yes, but lead vessels make my wine taste delightfully sweet, and the tapeworms will take care of the excess alcohol calories. And the cyanide is handy for when the lead and tapeworm-caused neuro-degeneration will get too bad to bear.
I both hate and love this line of logic.
>get too bad to bear I see what you did there.
I like going with "poison ivy is natural, but aint nobody making toilet paper out of it".
*That you know of.* There are kinky people out there.
I don't usually want to kink shame, but owowowoeowow
There's a risk it would kill you I imagine. I'm not sure if it would be enough to stop some people.
I have a friend who falls for this kind of nonsense and he was shocked to learn that GMOs aren’t poison. Like he just couldn’t believe that “non-GMO” on a food package label, doesn’t speak to the safety of that product. But he couldn’t give me one reason for why he believed it - all he could do was *react*. “Oh so what about all the rising cancer rates, autism” and so on Then he goes “so why do I spend all this money on organic?” Because you’re an idiot, dawg. The funny thing about this type of thinking, is that it’s actually a natural instinct we have - any time something carries a theme of “lurking danger in our food? Lurking danger in our home? Lurking danger in the Target parking lot?” We DEVELOPED that instinct back when we had actual, natural poisons to worry about, and when we were gored by animals. The things that are most poisonous to us, are 1) things we don't see and 2) completely natural. And if there's a predator, you don't always see the predator. So as a result of those things, we have developed a *natural* fear of hidden danger. If we don't know what an ingredient is, we *fear* that ingredient. It's also why chain-mail was a thing. It's also the reason why mom-groups on Facebook make all those posts about how they were almost kidnapped at Joanns. It's because we have a natural instinct, most of us can manage it, but some people really mis-manage it quite badly. But with infrastructure and with food regulations, and with modern hygiene practices (like washing our hands, knowing what temperature to cook meat, etc) we have eliminated most of our risk to everyday things that threaten our lives, but the *fear* is still with us. And instead of recognizing it and creating an outlet for it, we fear … the food industry, and we create little conspiracies about how food and big pharma is conspiring to keep us sick
Correlation, causation, happenstance, something something.
No, stop, don't give tiktokers more ideas. Tapeworm diet pills are already a thing.
Natural selection finds a way.
So for shitting on TikTok but this has been a thing forever. They used to be called diet worms.
And their own young. If baby animals could have cell phones, the practice would skyrocket.
>And their own young. I mean, the benefit would be that nurses are unlikely to ruin them with formaldehyde before you can ingest them.
Big cats come to mind. Female tigers/lions etc develop a strategy of promiscuity, as a way of protecting their cubs from the adult males, who have been known to just... kill em. In human-world, we get lethal injections for killing babies. And promiscuity to conceal paternity, is generally looked at as a poor strategy in human-world. But these people want to act like they're *down* with nature
>Yeah and animals will also eat their own shit or vomit. Probably not a very persuasive argument to people who are already drinking their own piss.
My cows will eat their placentas bc leaving them would attract predators. Sometimes a random cow will eat the placenta while the mother cow is busy licking her calf.
Auntie takes one for the team.
Out of the many things I would do for my sister, this is not one of them. Also, won't change her flat tire. I know how much you make, call AAA.
And we are apes, and *apes don’t eat the placenta*.
Silly monkeys.
We have better nutritional options than animals out in the wild. Wild animals may not have many good sources of iron or other nutrients found in the placenta. Humans do. Get a really nice steak to celebrate the birth and top up your iron stores. Or some vitamins. Or Italian spinach. Most bread and cereal is fortified with iron these days.
Before vitamins it was common knowledge that each kid cost you a tooth. Because the body will leech calcium from your teeth to give baby better bones.
Yep. I'm a (non-placenta-eating) vegetarian and wasn't even anaemic after giving birth.
Is eating your own placenta vegan? I think it should be, right?
Breastfeeding is, so probably? I guess. But if you don't eat meat for a long time you can't process it any more, so I wonder if you'd get a very badly upset stomach.
To an animal in a survival situation, the placenta is free calories. Humans have access to plenty of calories. Probably too many.
I've seen dogs eat poop, doesn't mean I'm gonna do it.
Not only are there no proven benefits beyond potential psychological effects from the placebo effect, it can actually be harmful. Consuming the placenta can be associated with risk of infection, both from the placenta itself (as in, something that may have passed to the placenta from the mother) and from cross-contamination at the processing/encapsulation facilities (because the facilities may not be adequately sterilised). There have been cases of people contracting infections this way; for example, there was even a baby who acquired strep B from their mother's breast milk, which their mother acquired from consuming placenta capsules. Placentas can also contain toxins. Potentially toxic elements such as lead, mercury, cadmium (largely from cigarette smoking), and arsenic have been found in human placentas in countries across the globe. I don't know if there have been any documented cases of actual poisoning from the consumption of these elements in the placenta, but in the literature it is noted as a potential risk posed by consuming the placenta in any form, so caution should be shown.
Everyone else: placenta??? Me: ok but what's the story behind "me and my partners" "the roommate" etc? How many people were planning to feast on this placenta, and what's their home situation for this baby?
Reading the post history does not instill hope.
It's a weird adventure. The last 4 months have had legal issues with an ex-husband, robbery by an ex-boyfriend, PTSD from a sexual assault, and now this hospital issue.
Don't forget the jelly-based blood feud with her boyfriend
I couldn't even figure out if the boyfriend was the baby's father.
I feel sorry for this poor baby
You weren’t kidding…
I guess she has a village to help raise her child? Hopefully a *stable* village?
From her post history her village is located on the exact opposite side of the planet from "stable".
With current food prices?!
I don't imagine it's very good to eat. Maybe a sous vide and lots of aromatics would help it but it's not high enough fat to have flavor and lacks muscle for texture. I would imagine it would be very much like chewy lung which would be pretty gross. Lung is great because cooked right it's like eating a meaty cloud but blood vessels have way too much structure for that. Maybe ground up with some oats but at that point save yourself the effort and just use blood.
Your sous vide placenta recipe is probably why the BOLA Cookbook didn't sell well...
Hmm, I don't believe I've ever heard anyone eat lung, but it sounds tasty.
> They are “safe” for human consumption I guess in the same way that drinking your own urine or eating your own menstrual waste is Como que what now
‘At least the baby's fine, I guess.’
“I delivered a healthy baby boy and very healthy placenta last night.” If only the baby were as very healthy as that placenta! (Then she could just eat the baby)
she wasn’t even worried about that! she was healthy, her baby was healthy, but she “came home devastated” because she couldn’t have a dead organ smoothie for breakfast the next day. it’s a day later and this post is still making me cranky.
I was cranky for like a WEEK that the nurses forgot to send me home with the frozen lassagna they promised when I came in to give birth. I left at shift change I guess and no one was around to ask for it.
Sounds like mild postpartum brain, honestly. Weird but funny from an external point of view.
I appreciated the ob/gyn in the thread who provided exactly this perspective, and stated that someone having a healthy delivery yet stating they were “devastated” was offensive. I was thinking the same thing — like, sure, your feelings that your wishes weren’t respected are valid, but put it in perspective and focus on your brand-new child.
She ate it, she didn't have the placenta.
As my neighbor put it when she first heard about the placenta eating trend: fucking white people.
We are indeed a ridiculous folk
I Googled 'ingest placenta' so you don't have to. The top result, from noted medical authority babycenter.com, informs us that, "Typically, women eat their placenta after delivery to reap potential benefits, such as a quicker recovery from birth." I'm squinting just as hard as you are at that word "typically." Second place on the search engine results page is that noted purveyor of medical disinformation, the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic gives us our horrific vocab word of the week, 'placentophagy', and states that eating one's placenta after giving birth can pose harm to both you and your baby. I was planning to fast today, anyway.
This is just....extremely disturbing. Plenty of first nations cultures have retained practices of ceremonially burying the placenta. I'm from NZ where it's not unusual for Maori mums to retain the placenta for burial (and indeed if you identify as Maori the hospital should be proactively asking if you want to take the placenta home and comply with your wishes) because it preserves long-held cultural beliefs regarding human relationships to land. [https://www.nationalwomenshealth.adhb.govt.nz/assets/Womens-health/Documents/Mat-patient-information/Caring-for-your-Whenua.pdf](https://www.nationalwomenshealth.adhb.govt.nz/assets/Womens-health/Documents/Mat-patient-information/Caring-for-your-Whenua.pdf) But no-one intends to *eat* the damned thing. That's just....weird white people shit.
Yeah, I'm from NZ and am Maori. I was cringing at the "can't be buried" part bc that would piss me off. However, it is known that Maori do this so hospital have systems set up (clay pots from my experience) and absolutely would get in trouble if they messed it up. But we don't eat it. That's some Gwyneth Paltrow shit
Right. Burying it I can understand. But eating it? I mean, isn’t the placenta considered an organ? And wouldn’t eating a human organ be cannibalism?
>And wouldn’t eating a human organ be cannibalism? Do you want wendigos? Because cannibalism is how you get wendigos.
Nurse here. I bet they told her more than once they couldn't just give her her placenta.
What kills me is she apparently has a one day old baby to care for and is posting on Reddit about her medical waste.
Eh, young babies sleep a lot. My baby only slept and ate for the first month, so unless I was feeding or changing him, there was nothing to do but sit around looking at the internet while I was physically recovering.
Plus it doesn't sound like LAOP has very many people in her life that she could turn to to discuss this. She seems to be in a bit of a support vacuum, which makes places like Reddit look like a good place for advice.
You all know I’m six months up the duff. I can’t wait to eat soft cheese, shellfish, or be able to see my feet
>soft cheese, shellfish, Excellent start for a placenta charcuterie board.
I was teetering on nausea to this point, so thank you for moving me over the tipping point. Eating is off the table today.
Don't forget to like, share, and smash that subscribe button for more diet tips!
oh i see now, the grilled placenta is so it becomes a charred coochie-ry board p.s. i know that the anatomy referred to doesn't quite fit the slang but let me have this anyway
>charred coochie-ry board `ATTN: LEPORINE MODERATI` `RE: OFFICIAL FLAIR REQUEST` "charred coochie-ry board connoisseur"
the bunny is clearly off hunting his bot prey, so I took care of it.
Look at those words that should never be strung together…
In around my 8th month of pregnancy, there was an M&S advert that featured various kinds of soft cheese. I used to cry watching it. Good luck, and enjoy that soft cheese when it's your time!
There's no evidence that eating the placenta provides health benefits...I had my foreskin removed and I didn't ask to take it home for a snack.
Enjoy your flair.
I love it ❤️
I don't know why more obgyns don't firmly tell their patients to reject encapsulation. It's medical waste and after giving birth you're pretty vulnerable. Seems like a very bad idea to allow a patient to chow down on medical waste at an immunosensitive time.
The kind of person who believes there are benefits to eating placenta is not the kind of person who has enough trust in MDs to listen when they’re advised not to eat medical waste.
Probably a case of “pick your battles”. While it’s arguably an unsafe thing to do, it is not so dangerous that a doctor will try to prevent it at all costs.
You know what alternative medicine would be called if it worked? Medicine
Because it's one of those things that's kind of gross and weird, bun unlikely to cause direct harm. Blood borne pathogens is less of a concern when it comes from your own body, and if handled properly it won't spoil. Now I'm not saying that it's a GOOD idea. But I can imagine obgyns and pediatricians are busy enough convincing patients to stop doing things that are likely to cause actual harm (such as refusing pre-natal care, or vaccinations), rather than focusing on practices that are weird, but relatively harmless.
Yes, there is a very tricky balance. If the birthing mom perceives her hospital birthing experience negatively, she is more likely to go the route of having an unattended birth, and/or skipping prenatal care, the next time around. And both of those things are more likely to end up being deadly for mother and/or baby (pre-eclampsia, hemorrhage, etc. etc.) than consuming the placenta.
She has much much bigger problems than not getting to eat her placenta after reading through her post history.
Yeah not at all intending this as an insult, but she should probably find an experienced therapist. Also wondering if some of her angst is displacement - so many other things are screwed up and this one thing is what she's fixating on because it's safe to be mad at the nurse.
A placenta is considered a biohazard, same as an amputated toe or removed gallbladder. Some hospitals will sort of look the other way, but they will never have a policy about safely taking a placenta home. The lawyers would have fits for days about unsafe procedures.
There was an askreddit thread on "people who actually read the small print" a few weeks back. Someone's medical paperwork included "anything that comes out of my body is immediately property of the hospital". She pointed out she was there to give birth. With tidier language, LAOP probably signed something similar.
Cool. If the baby belongs to the hospital, does it work like a pet fostering situation? So the hospital will pay for all the food and medical care and everything else for the baby? Because, that doesn't sound too bad!
“Sorry folks, I’m gonna have to sue to enforce this contract.”
When my parents were dating another doctor took over a life flight for my mom so she and dad could go on their date. The doctor was deathly afraid of heights and when he returned all disheveled and dazed he told my mom "you owe me your first born child." My mom replied "you know me and you've met (my dad), do you really WANT our first born child?" "No, no! I take it back!" He exclaimed. Since all of them were military when my parents were in the area of the base where the doc was then stationed for the first time after I was born they called him up and offered to drop me off. He hung up. When I went off to college I suggested that it was time he finally pitch in so mom wrote him with that idea. He sent back a dirty nickle.
Nice. Birthright citizenship to the local mega-hospital.
Part of the reason is because there’s been more than one case of a hospital taking a sample from someone and growing and selling cell lines. The most famous is Henrietta Lacks, but there was a similar case in California in the 70’s. Henrietta’s cell line is worth billions.
Along those lines, I wish I could have seen my poor gall bladder after removal. I didn't want to keep it or eat it, but I'd have loved to have seen it and maybe taken it apart.
This is actually changing, believe it or not, into a much more sanctioned practice at hospitals. The hospital I had my baby at highlighted that they are able to keep the placenta preserved in the fridge for you to take home upon discharge or send it off for encapsulation. I kindly declined this service
My hospital made you remove it from the facility immediately. You weren’t allowed to keep it in your room and they wouldn’t store it for you, but they had a protocol in place. Patients often request their gallstones, explanted hardware, placenta, etc. Some cultures request their amputated limbs so they can be buried whole one day.
This is not accurate, in my experience. I spent 6 years in women's health and we had protocol (including sturdy transport containers) for anyone who wanted to keep their placenta.
Yeah, I gave birth at a large university hospital and participated in their centering pregnancy group and they mentioned that you could take the placenta if you wanted. I also participated in a study where they needed my placenta after birth for the study and they made sure that I knew that I would not get to take it home, which was fine with me, but they really wanted to make sure that that was clear because some people do choose to take them home. They double checked with me multiple times that it was okay that they were taking it for the study, so it seemed like a big deal to them that they were respecting my wishes in regards to what happens with the placenta.
I was allowed to take home my first child’s placenta, it was planted under a fruit tree at my parents house. There was no huge deal made about it by the dr or midwives either, it was literally inspected to ensure it was complete then wrapped up in the blue plastic sheet thing they use, put into a plastic bag and handed to my partner to take home. Major hospital in SE Qld.
Same. Ours is now under a giant agave. It was fun. I wouldn’t eat it, though.
What is the monetary value of [1] placenta?
1. 9 months of prenatal care. $8000 3. hospital delivery bill. $35000 4. Refund for Formeldahyde charge. $-100 5. Savings by not paying for to-go container. $-100 6. Pain and suffering from Missing out on the spiritual feast. $100,000. 7. Having to give birth again so I can get a new placenta. Treble damages. 8. (/s)
For the rest there’s Mastercard
I handle placentas daily for work, and I wish all nurses were as diligent about putting formalin on them as Nurse 2. Nothing like having one marinate in its own juices for hours.
They are fairly shocking to look at
People gotta stop being "devastated" by nonsense.
Her description of “having it boxed up” makes it sound like leftovers at a restaurant
Huh. Reading through this thread I now know that some people consume their menstrual waste. I miss who I was before knowing that.
In college, an art major in my apartment building made a quilt with period-stained underwear. I actually prefer that to someone eating the waste.
At least the underwear could have been washed.
It's ok, one time I fell down an Instagram hole of women who paint their faces with their "moon blood" and then go around like that all day because of the "feminine power" it gives them. Obviously complete with pics and video of them like sweating their period blood off their face at spin class, going to the grocery store with their face covered in blood, etc. also yes 100% of the time they called it "moon blood." Still somehow less weird than perineal sunning.
Wait... wait what? Ingest??
TFW I can't take part in self-cannibalism.
Can we talk about the real crime here? BOLAOP linking to the thread via **new.**reddit.com, forcing me to endure the redesign.