“You ate what?!”
Natalie from Placenta Vitality reflects on 10 years of encapsulating placentas on the Coast.
To be honest placenta encapsulation is not what I imagined I would be doing when I “grew up”. It’s one of those things I kind of fell into. After attempting to ingest placenta unsuccessfully after my first baby (I tried smoothies, but couldn’t stomach it), I then tried capsules with my second. The difference was night and day in terms of how I felt both physically and emotionally. Seeing that for herself my lovely midwife at the time convinced me to start offering it to others. Now 2 qualifications and 10 years later it is something I am well known for on the Coast.
My favourite part of the job is seeing the new parents in their post birth glow. It can be such a head trip having a baby, one part of you is like “WTF just happened to my body/my partner’s body!?” and another part is like “OMFG we made a human!”. It feels like such a privilege to enter a room a few hours after a new life has arrived.
Most of the midwives know me now. In the early days I sometimes had to explain what I did or why I did it, but now they all know all about placenta encapsulation, and I have encapsulated for many of them too.
The Kardashians helped. When Kim got her placenta encapsulated it brought it into the mainstream. These days it’s super rare that someone hasn’t at least heard of placenta encapsulation. There are also more people offering it as a service. Which on the one hand is great, on the other hand it is slightly worrying as it is a self regulated industry. So you really need to make sure your encapsulator knows what they are doing. It is always okay to ask where they trained (unfortunately some organisations have very minimal or sub par training), the dates of their most current certifications (should be annual), what their sanitation protocol is (probably the most important part of this job) and if they are insured for placenta encapsulation (hopefully they answer yes).
Recently I found out about a new medication for postnatal depression. One of my favourite midwives told me about it. In the past PND has been treated with regular antidepressants. But now they know that PND can be quite different biochemically, and of course should be treated accordingly. This new medication is based upon, low and behold, a compound that is naturally found in the placenta! Of course I can’t make any claims about the effectiveness of placenta encapsulation for PND, but I can say that I have had many clients with previous PND history report that they avoided PND when they took their placenta capsules.
Once I was in my car stopped at a pedestrian crossing. I smiled at the couple with a pram who were walking across, in return she smiled the biggest smile back at me, then elbowed her partner in the ribs and I saw her say “it’s the placenta lady”. Her partner looked back at me with recognition and gave me the biggest smile as well. I tend to be known as ‘the placenta lady’ by a lot of people.
1400 is a crazy amount. I can’t believe I have encapsulated so many placentas. My clients come from all walks of life, there are home births, hospital births, freebirths, and caesarean births, there are medicated and unmedicated births, high risk and low risk births. I have lots of second and third time clients too. I have encapsulated many twin placenta, but not yet triplets.
**People often report the capsules helping them with their grief process. I have encapsulated for people who have recently lost a close family member, a child, partner or parent, sometimes expected, other times suddenly, and/or traumatically. I believe our bodies are so wise. It wouldn’t surprise me if in the future we learn that the placenta formulates itself not only for what the baby needs while inside, but for what the mother is going to need postnatally too.
I have tried many flavours of capsules over the years: mint, orange, lime, strawberry, grape bubblegum. The most popular is Berry, so I always have that in stock. The placenta itself doesn’t really taste once it’s been processed and put into capsules, so the flavoured capsules are more for psychological purposes.
Pete posted a picture of my placenta in a sandwich on Instagram. If you know Pete this won’t surprise you. He is a Heston trained chef. The evening after I gave birth at home he fried a couple of thin slices of my placenta in olive oil, made an amazing sourdough sandwich, with rocket, horseradish mayonnaise and micro herbs. He shot it artfully with his Nikon and then edited and posted it. The response was unsurprisingly mixed. He said he felt ‘high’ after eating it. He has been sober for 20 years and is super sensitive to things. Many mothers report feeling almost ‘high’ on their placenta too. I may or may not have had people ask me if they can just get the capsules without providing their own placenta. (The answer is most definitely no).
My mother recently told me my own placenta pretty much cumbled when it came out. I was tiny - premature size, but 10 days over my EDD. When I heard this about my placenta it felt like a full circle healing moment, and it kind of made sense that I was now working with placentas. I was also a c-section baby. Another of my favourite midwives told me about how she believes babies who choose to come via c-section are doing so in order to break a generational cycle, and not come into the world carrying their mothers’ baggage. I have often felt like the odd one out in my family so this resonated too.
Covid was weird. There were lots of Rona babies of course. In the social distancing days I would meet partners outside the hospital. I really missed meeting the mums and seeing the bubs. I loved it when they would text me a photo of them with their baby. In a strange way it’s kind of intimate work, and I really like to know whose placenta I am encapsulating.
The grandparents are the best. The ones who have stored a fresh placenta in their fridge, or played placenta chauffeur and met me somewhere to give it to me. They are a beautiful mixture of proud and bewildered at the same time. Proud that they are helping their child, bewildered at what exactly it is they are helping them with.
**I create placenta art as well. I trace around the shape and then build many layers of watercolour to look like a cosmos. When I took my first one to the framers she thought it was a stingray. I like that it’s not an actual placenta on the wall, rather it is more of a symbolic representation of birth. There is something magical and cosmic about birth and placentas.
**I love what I do. It’s not your usual kind of job, but I love how it supports mothers in their postnatal. My biggest values in life are connection, compassion and communication. My background is psychology, and while I have one foot firmly in all things science, the other more than toe-dips in all things ‘woo-woo’. Like many things, placenta encapsulation falls into both camps.
We all have words we live by. For me, life is about experiencing and living and loving. So drink the wine with your bestie into the wee hours. Give yourself full permission to go after your deepest desires. Birth however you want. Don’t give a damn what they think. Eat the cake. Laugh until your belly aches. Romance yourself. Be an ally. Speak up. Share your resources. Let your heart grow so big there’s no room for anything petty or shameful or judgemental. Above all, be nice to yourself. “Life is short. Make it sweet”.
Natalie Stokell has encapsulated over 1500 placentas now. She is fully trained, certified and insured. She loves talking placentas, so please feel free to reach out with any questions. She can be found at www.placentavitality.com. Check out the special offers page for a Sunshine Coast Baby exclusive discount.