from The New York Daily News

I ate my placenta like Kim Kardashian, and you should too: Brooklyn mom

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Eating your placenta sounds like something only Kim Kardashian would do – but Prospect Heights mother Jennifer Mayer, 32, has been encapsulating the afterbirths of hundreds of New York mothers to treat postpartum depression and boost energy for the past five years. Here’s her personal experience eating the fruit of her labor, in her own words.

My first baby was born a year ago, and I prepared my own placenta the day after his birth.

It doesn’t taste like anything in capsule form. I slice it, dehydrate it and fill it into a capsule about the size of a vitamin, and place the pills in a blue glass bottle. If anything, it might smell a little metallic. You know, like blood.

So far the science on eating placenta is mostly anecdotal; women sharing their personal experiences of it helping with their baby blues. My clients say it increases their energy. Taking a capsule gives them a boost equal to a cup of coffee or a green juice — which, if you have a newborn, is pretty awesome. And there are studies from the turn of the century that show dehydrated placenta did increase milk supply in breastfeeding moms.

But I do have friends who get a little grossed out about it. I have one friend in particular who asks me, “Jen, any time you have to talk about eating placenta, can you just say ‘polenta?’”

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