Warning: many of the links included in this post lead to fairly graphic pictures. This is not for the faint of heart. However, if you have trouble stomaching (no pun intended) the images you see, you probably should never get pregnant.

“Will Placenta Smoothies be the Next Post Birth Trend?” Jennifer Chait over at Inhabitots asks in a short post about an America’s Next Top Model alum’s placenta smoothie. Jennifer is well aware of the fact that the consumption of placenta has “been a thing” for many, many, many, many years. Back in 2007, a couple of friends and I became a bit obsessed with this blog post about a placenta party, wherein a gentleman documents the process of cooking and serving “Manley’s Patent Spiced Placenta Fricassée” to a group of his friends, some of whom were vegan.

This interest led to a need to Google all things placenta. People consume their placenta for a number of reasons. Placentophagy is something that many mammals do for nutritional purposes and many human proponents believe that it helps fight against postpartum depression. Many people simply have their placenta turned into pills that they swallow, though there are no shortages of recipes available for people to consume their placentas in traditional meals. However, placentas aren’t just for eating! A stroll through a hair and beauty shop in my old stomping grounds in Queens brought me face-to-face with beauty products containing placenta. I’m pretty sure I still own a tube of one of these products, very thoughtfully purchased for me by one of the aforementioned friends. According to Wikipedia, most of these products are made with sheep placenta…which I guess is better? I dunno. (This is kinda like, why is eating breastmilk ice cream any less weird than eating ice cream made from an anonymous cow?)

(By the way, apparently the use of placenta containing hair products induced early puberty in some young girls.)

Now, back to me. What should I do with my placenta? Cook it? Encapsulate it? Bury it? Leave it attached to the baby? Turn it into a shampoo? Right now I am leaning towards using it to paint a onesie, one of the suggestions on Inhabitots’ 5 ‘Fun’ Things You Can Do With Your Baby’s Placenta post.