n.
A pill made from a woman's placenta and taken by that woman to treat certain postpartum conditions.
Example Citations:
Anne Ferguson, mother of two, is one of those women. She prepares placenta pills by boiling, slicing and dehydrating the placenta and then pureeing what's left into a fine powder. The powder is capped in a small pill. This entire process is known as placenta encapsulation.
—" More Mothers Using Placenta Pill To Combat Postpartum Depression: http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/03/01/more-mothers-using-placenta-pill-to-combat-postpartum-depression/," CBS Miami, March 1, 2012
The placenta pill was the brainchild of American Lynnea Shrief who formed the Independent Placenta Encapsulation Network two years ago.
—" Would you take a pill made out of your own placenta? Midwife sells babies' afterbirth back to new mothers: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2090607/Would-pill-placenta-Midwife-sells-babies-afterbirth-new-mothers.html," Daily Mail, January 24, 2012
Earliest Citation:
"I don't need research to say that it's going to help me," says Nicole Dodson-Sands, 32, of Albuquerque, who suffered depression after her third son's birth six months ago and took placenta pills she made herself. "It's not something that was dangerous."
—Steve Friess, " Ingesting the placenta: Is it healthy for new moms?: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-07-18-placenta-ingestion_N.htm," USA Today, June 19, 2007
Notes:
Manufacturing the placenta into pill form is the modern, more palatable version of placentophagy, the eating of the placenta by the mother after birth, a word that dates to 1902.
The more general sense of the phrase placenta pill — a pill made from a human placenta — is quite a bit older:
The general rule is that, if something is wrong, the body should be fed with something corresponding to the malfunction or crisis. So, for hepatitis eat liver...for menstrual problems or difficult pregnancies, eat human placenta pills.
—James Kell, "Hot and cold in every room," The Guardian, April 30, 1988
Related Words:
Categories:
Back when I was a young mom (hippy type) I knew women who just cooked and ate the placenta. Some fried onions.... oooh, BACON! It tastes like liver!
New words. 2013.