5 bizarre (and totally beneficial) things you can do with your placenta

Maternity jeans: €60, baby's cot €80, the look on someone's face when you tell them you ate your placenta? Priceless. 

Scoff all you want, but there is no denying that this hardworking organ has been a vital part of sustaining that little life inside you for the past 9 months. But does that mean you have to EAT it?  No, it does not. Does that mean you have to turn it into a teddy bear? Maybe. I actually didn't eat mine. I didn't even know it was an option. I think I would have felt very strange asking the hospital to let me have my afterbirth to take home with me. I mean, it is MINE after all. It is technically a body part that I left behind. But for some, I respect that ingesting the placenta is an important ritual AND is packed full of important minerals. After all, placenta eating has been practiced for thousands of years all over the world. Would you give your afterbirth an afterlife? Here is our list of creative uses for your afterbirth: 1. Eat it Clueless actress Alicia Silverstone did it. But there may be a clue in there!  We all know that this little life-saver is packed-full of vitamins which can help with balancing your hormones, enhancing your milk supply, preventing postpartum depression, and increasing your energy. But not everybody likes the idea of chowing down on their own insides. So why not disguise it in a delicious smoothie. Midwife, Dinah Waranch says it is one of the best ways you can get it into you!

"Moms can receive many physiological benefits from eating placenta including prevention of hemorrhage, hormonal regulation, lowered risk of postpartum depression and increased breast milk production. One of the most popular ways to eat placenta is to make a smoothie, which can help mask the taste. Others prefer to cook it up into a variety of tasty dishes like placenta fajitas, placenta chili, placenta lasagna or simply swallow it down raw"

Gulp. 2. Smear it on your face This is the skincare secret to anti-aging and fine lines according to skin care ranges from Mila Skin Care, Shiseido and Progressive Beauty who all use placenta as ingredients in their products. These companies claim it is rich in antioxidants, proteins and amino acids and goes a LONG way to rejuvenating the skin. 3. Afterbirth Art Your child's tiny handprint may not be enough for you to mark their journey into this world. You can now create a keepsake print of your placenta in art form. Companies exist which can wash, prepare and print it using "natural placenta blood" and display the general appearance of it along with the dates and details of the birth. You can then frame it, obviously. Eat your heart out, Banksy! 4. Make a Teddy Crafty much? Designer Alex Green recognised how sentimental mothers can be after giving birth. You can get now a DIY home kit which includes an emulsifying mixture to mould the afterbirth into a unique teddy to honour this life saving force.

"It's more heavy than you'd imagine; they're more the sort of thing that you'd stick on a mantel pieces," said Green. "It feels soft, somewhere between leather and suede but it's much more flexible than leather. It's bendy."

And it isn't that difficult, especially if you are a pro and tanning and stitching human organs. Bless. 5. Take it as a pill Lisa Cotter from Co Cork trained as a placenta incapsulation specialist and now runs a business preparing placentas and grinding up the dried afterbirth into pill form. She believes ingesting the placenta is an important part of the birthing process;

"Dried placenta powder was recognised as a potent medicine in Europe for centuries and used to treat and cure many ailments, mostly those surrounding birth. However since the late 19th century most natural birthing methods where replaced by modern birthing techniques, losing along the way many valuable traditions practiced for centuries. The benefits of consuming the placenta are being rediscovered and scientists are beginning to study placentophagy. Today there is profound scientific evidence to suggest consuming the placenta can be just as beneficial for humans as it is for other mammals."

Her services are available in Cork, Waterford, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and on request, in Dublin. Bizarre yet beneficial, we do like to pay homage to this life-saving force. Let us know what you think about honouring this hard-working organ once is has finished sustaining life.