Placenta pills draw scrutiny

Even if you're not into reality TV, you may be aware that consuming the placenta is now a thing among certain postpartum women, including celebrities.

Kourtney and Kim Kardashian swear by it. Clueless actress Alicia Silverstone touted it in her parenting book. Mad Men star January Jones declared, "It's not witchcrafty or anything!"

The purported but unproven benefits of eating the afterbirth include improved energy, lactation, and mood.

But here's the thing about this thing, technically called placentophagy: Most partakers, including boldface names, are not eating the placenta à la Hannibal Lecter. Rather, they are consuming the organ after it has been dehydrated, pulverized, and put into capsules.

By reducing the yuck factor, placenta pills are winning converts, at least among those who already hold holistic, natural-is-good cultural beliefs.

"There are people who eat the placenta raw or in smoothies; I couldn't do that," said Heather Meyer, 40, a mother of six, who runs a placenta encapsulation service from her home in Levittown. With capsules, "you can kind of forget the fact that it's the placenta in there."

Placenta encapsulation was almost unheard of a decade ago. Now, practitioners - many of them doulas or midwives - are part of an international cottage industry with its own associations, training courses, and certifications.

But as often happens when an unfamiliar practice suddenly catches on, there is little official oversight or regulation.

Many women who want to consume their placentas give birth at home. Even in hospitals, which normally dispose of the placenta as medical waste, women who want to keep it can usually do so, as long as they sign a release and have no known infection, encapsulators say.

Penn Medicine - operator of three hospitals with maternity units, including Philadelphia's largest - "requires a placenta release form be signed by both the patient and a member of her care team," a spokesperson said. "Patients are advised that the placenta . . . should be treated as potentially infectious material. Placentas are placed in approved specimen containers for transport."

This laissez-faire approach may be changing as researchers and regulators scrutinize New Age placentophagy.

In 2014, the European Food Safety Authority designated human placenta as a novel food, effectively banning placenta encapsulation for safety reasons. British health authorities have since gone to court at least a few times to shut down encapsulators because their "foods" might expose consumers to health risks including blood-borne pathogens.

Placentophagy "doesn't seem to be harmful," said University of Utah nurse midwife Emily Hart Hayes, author of a review article last month in the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic and Neonatal Nursing. "But I personally tell people there isn't a lot of research."

Historically, new mothers so rarely ate the placenta that there was nothing to study. For her article, Hayes scoured a century of medical literature, even searching for the term placenta encapsulation, and found only 18 articles.

Later this year, researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas plan to publish results from the first clinical trial to compare women who took placenta pills with those who took placebo pills. The study was led by Daniel Benysheck, a UNLV anthropologist, and Jodi Selander, a placenta encapsulation pioneer, who claims to have coined the terminology.

The team previously conducted a survey that found 80 percent of placenta-ingesters used capsules.

The placenta - a flattened, circular organ that weighs about a pound - serves as a clearinghouse for fetal nutrients and waste products, and maternal hormones. In theory, the tissue contains compounds that could be beneficial or harmful, or both. Placental estrogen, for example, might be good for mood, but raise the risk of blood clots.

Encapsulators say processing the placenta for medicinal purposes isn't just a trendy craze, because the Chinese have done it for centuries - although not traditionally for new mothers.

"Placenta preparation is not a fad; it is an ancient art form," said the Association of Placental Preparation Arts (APPA).

In any case, it is booming. Association cofounder Jules Gourley said a "small handful" of women across the country were encapsulating placentas when she began in 2007. "Now there are a handful just in my city" of Albuquerque, N.M.

Meyer, who estimated the Philadelphia area has 20 encapsulation businesses, first tried her hand in 2006, using her fourth child's placenta. She believes the pills warded off postpartum depression, a problem she battled after her third child's birth.

Now, she processes about 10 placentas a month, no longer noticing the "gamy, earthy" smell as each organ dries out over 24 hours. The client winds up with about 125 pills, for which Meyer charges up to $250. She also sells placenta tinctures and art prints made by using the placenta as a giant stamp.

"It's a great supplemental income," said Meyer, whose husband is an electrician. "I couldn't raise my children on it, but it's definitely nice."

Meyer has taken three online courses, including one offered by APPA, to learn food-handling and infection-prevention techniques.

Even though she began with techniques she found on the Internet, she says women should be wary.

"There are Facebook groups for encapsulation," she said. "They're not practicing good sanitation. They're not using the correct bleach ratios for cleaning tools. Some have even used vinegar. It's a little scary. It's good for consumers to ask questions of their provider."

mmccullough@phillynews.com

215-854-2720 @repopter