Placenta Love
Moon Water Midwifery
Offers placenta services to all clients, including options for encapsulation, tinctures, mother broth, smoothies, blood prints, and professional photos.
Services are offered in connection with my secondary practice, Blooming Water Lilies.
The Why?
Most mammals (including primates) consume part or all of their placentas. Consider what a Momma Cat does after the birth of each of her kittens. She eats the sac that each baby kitten is born in and then consumes the placenta, immediately. Many women in diverse cultures throughout history have consumed their placentas for re-balancing their bodies after giving birth. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has used the placenta for its multitude of healing benefits for thousands of years. The placenta contains the body’s own natural hormones and iron stores, which remain after birth, as well as the baby’s storehouse for everything baby needed throughout the gestational period. The placenta also contains all of the memories between mother and baby surrounding the pregnancy, labor, and birth process and contains reserves of what both need to recover and re-balance efficiently.
The What?
Placenta Encapsulation, or Placentophagy, is the practice of preparing the placenta into medicinal capsules for consumption back into the body. Utilizing the medicinal properties of the placenta, helps to restore the Motherly balance in a natural and spiritual way. For many it can be a very sacred, powerful and healing process, allowing the placenta to continue to nourish and protect both mother and baby after birth, as well as promoting a more pleasant postpartum recovery.
Non-Refundable Deposit to Secure Services: $75 (credited towards total fee)
Choose Processing Method(s): Capsule + tincture, smoothies, prints, photos
Complete Transaction Within the Cart Page: List processing methods n the comments section
Contract: Within 1-2 business days of your transaction you will receive an email with your contract for eSignature
Confirmation: Within 1-2 business days of contract completion you will receive your confirmation and instruction details
$250
Processing is done through the Traditional Chinese Medicine method (TCM). Involves energy work to encourage the placenta to release the beneficial properties back to mother and baby now that is has completed it’s internal purpose during pregnancy.
Most placentas yield between 85 and 160 capsules, depending on size of placenta.
Bonus – Includes a free cord keepsake.
$250
This method can be done in conjunction with the TCM method when a woman has experienced any of the following:
Birth related trauma, hemorrhage, or has a history of postpartum depression.
Anywhere from 10 – 25 RAW capsules are yielded as a “boost” for the mother to take when needed, alongside her TCM method capsules. Amount varies, depending on need.
$55
Yield – 4oz.
Placenta tincture is another way to reap the benefits from the placenta in a liquid essence form.
Tinctures are mainly meant for energy, transition, stress, and hormone stabilization. Often considered magic in a bottle.
If stored properly, can yield a life-long remedy for both mom and baby.
- Mom: Used during menstrual cycles, PMS prevention, decreased cramping and blood-flow, etc.
- Baby: Used after 6 months of age for any emotional or potentially traumatic transition such as teething, weaning, sleeping changes, tantrums, and hormone balance during the puberty stage.
The tincture ferments for the first 6 weeks postpartum. It then replaces the hormone support needed after the capsule regiment has been completed.
The Mother tincture created after the fermentation process can then be used for succuss (diluting), extending its lifespan for years and years to come. Instructions will be provided on caring for and extending the life of the remedy.
$35
Utilizing the placenta, raw, in the initial days after birth, is becoming an extremely popular and important step in a new mother’s postpartum healing.
Smoothies are highly recommended,particularly in the first 3 days to 3 weeks after birth.
Replenishing the body rapidly and restoring necessary iron levels by natural and powerful means.
This mixed-berry smoothie blend contains an abundance of healthy nutrients needed to aid the new mother in her healing process. Packaged frozen, with instructions on blending as needed.
$35 – print alone
$40 – print laminated
$50 – print framed
Placenta art is made paint free, as a blood print, on specialty paper to ensure blood preservation.
Instructions will be provided on the way to care for and store the placenta after delivery to ensure the best print possible is able to be made, without distortion.
$75 – 3 digital photos
Professional photos done in commemoration of the special role this amazing organ played in baby’s growth, development, and birth.
Instant download and print rights included.
Services offered through Ashllina Rochelle Photograhpie, an extremely talented family and lifestyle photographer here in New Braunfels.
PS – Ashllina happens to be my beautiful daughter. <3
The Benefits
Many women report experiencing a sooner return of energy after a long labor, a bountiful milk supply, a smoother transition through the baby blues phase, more subtle mood changes including prevention of postpartum depression, more rapid increase of blood loss replenishment and less discomfort of afterbirth pains … overall, a more peaceful postpartum recovery period!
- Smoothing the hormone fluctuation after birth, as the body transitions from a pregnant to a non-pregnant state
- Balancing of emotions through the “baby blues” stage
- Reduction in the chances or severity of postpartum depression
- Replenishes vitamins & minerals (specifically iron) lost during pregnancy and birth
- Reduction in postpartum bleeding
- Decrease in afterbirth pains
- Helps in establishing a healthy and abundant milk supply
- Commence and encourage the body’s natural healing process
- Return of the body’s natural energy level, sooner after birth
- Increased openness to the bonding process with baby, without many of the barriers created by postpartum depression
- Protection of the “couples bond” from after birth stress and strain
The Process
According to TCM, it is imperative that the individual whom is processing the placenta be in a very calm, collected, peaceful and respectful frame of mind while handling the placenta. The energy surrounding the process is just as, if not even more important than the methotical act of processing in general. The placenta should be handled with the utmost of care and reverence every step of the way. The Encapsulation process requires two to three days of prep and work, back to back.
The placenta is gently cleaned, bled-out, steamed, dehydrated at specific temperatures and times, allowing necessary periods of rest in the space between. Then, it is ground down into a fine powder to be encapsulated.
It is ideal to schedule placenta care services with at least 6 weeks prior to the anticipated due date, to ensure an available slot for services, having all required paperwork completed for the legal handling and processing of the body organ, and making pick-up arrangements smoother.
A Note on the Addition of Herbs
I am often asked by clients if I add, or if I can add, additional herbs to their placenta capsules. It has become common practice by many encapsulation specialists to add a mixture of dried herbs into the placenta capsules during the grinding and/or encapsulation process.
Considered Benefits
Cleansing and detoxifying the body, promoting healing, or buffering the sometimes-strong effects the capsules can have on specific individuals.
Considered Effects
Every woman’s body is different and what works for one woman is not necessarily what is right for another. There is no way to know how an individual’s body will respond to a “cleanse” of herbs, especially after an event such as giving birth.
Should a woman’s body have a less than desirable response to an herb which was added to her placenta capsules, then the entire placenta has been wasted and is no longer of use to her. Had the placenta capsules and herbal capsules been taken separately, then she can choose on her own how to adjust the amount she is consuming of both to find the right balance for her body’s needs from one day to the next.
It is for this reason that I do not, and will not, add additional herbs to an encapsulated placenta.
My Stance
Should a woman desire to take additional “healing or cleansing herbs,” alongside your placenta capsules, I would encourage her to do so on her own, following the needs of her body and being responsive to what her body is telling her every step of the way.
