PLACENTA ETHICS -- Is it an ethical issue?
Never mind that the placenta has more stem cells than the umbilical cord.
BURY IT, EAT IT OR CUDDLE IT
Some parents choose to bury their baby's placenta in the back yard as a symbolic gesture and a tree in that spot a year later. Some actually light candles and eat it for dinner. And now, you can get a kit and make a one-of-a-kind teddy bear with the placenta. Has anyone had the nerve to interview Michael J. Fox on this idea?
Oh yes, there are number of parents who have no idea what happens to the placenta after birth and would rather not know, thank you. (In the U.S., the placenta is frequently discarded as medical waste). I think it's becoming a political issue, whether you can stomach it or not. Some say, it's a way to pay your respects to the life-sustaining organ.
PLACENTA EATING
Placenta eating is a tradition practiced in many cultures -- Mexico, China and the Pacific Islands. Eating the placenta is linked to increased breast milk production, lowered risk of hemhorrage, and increased nutritional benefits. Most women who consume their placenta do it to ward off postpartum depression (PPD).
PLACENTA RECIPES AND ART
The practice of placentophagia, eating the placenta, has produced a number of placenta recipes for cooking -- from placenta stew and placenta lasagna to placenta cocktail and placenta pizza.
Other mothers save their placentas to make placenta art prints -- I do not kid about art.
THE PLACENTA TEDDY
Actually, the teddy bear thing must be under the craft category. The bright idea is from one Alex Green, a toy designer, who created the "Twin Teddy Kit." This kit is suppose to "celebrate the unity of the infant, the mother and the placenta." Uh-oh, alert Daddy blogs!
To transform the placenta into a teddy bear, it must be cut in half and rubbed with sea salt to cure. After it has dried, it is treated with an emulsifying mixture of tannin and egg yoke to make it soft and pliable, according to Inhabitots.
Describing the teddy as "a faceless, pee-yellow colored critter held together by thick black stitches," Katie Farden says the placenta bear "could scare the shit out of Frankenstein."
MORE THAN ONE KIND OF HONOR
Yet, Farden contemplates in Seattle University's Spectator:
"Still, I don't know whether to squirm, or do a happy dance, for a toy that might honor something that comes out of a woman's body -- instead of dismissing it as just plain nasty.
"So before we condemn it as the most repulsive toy idea since Gak, I hope we ponder the larger social norms and pop culture influences that may have predisposed us (to) wrinkle our noses at placenta."
THINK OF MICHAEL J. FOX
I'm not ready for the happy dance -- or the placenta teddy bear. But I agree with Farden that there are larger issues to contemplate. For one, there is the use of stem cells in research and probable future cures for devastating diseases.
Hang in there Michael Fox! You and fellow sufferers in need of a cure are more important than a teddy bear in a jar.
TO READ "AN AFTERBIRTH ALTERNATIVE TO THE PLACENTA: CROCHETED AND DETACHABLE" CLICK HERE.
TO READ OTHER SCAREY POSTS, BUT ABOUT HALLOWEEN, CLICK HERE.
by Sharon McEachern
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