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I know some people cook it but Why would you bury the placenta???

27 replies

horseshoe · 27/03/2008 17:49

Just a question really.

My MW said she had a couple of mums who will be burying their placenta after birth!!

Is it the belief in a living organism??? I dont understand...

OP posts:

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motherinferior · 27/03/2008 17:51

It is quite magnificent. I can sort of see why. Also apparently very good fertiliser.

avenanap · 27/03/2008 17:51

My old next door neighbour buried hers in the back garden and planted a tree on the top. Her theory was that it was so full of nutrients it would be a waste to throw it away and she would always have the tree. In future years she would watch the tree grow as her child grew and would remember her pregnancy. The tree died.

pruners · 27/03/2008 17:58

Message withdrawn

avenanap · 27/03/2008 18:13

She had alot of cats in her garden though. They were piddling around the tree and trying to dig it up. I think this is what killed it. She said she should have dug it a bit deeper. It's a lovely thought pruners.

pruners · 27/03/2008 18:17

Message withdrawn

fragola · 27/03/2008 18:41

My husband was born at home and his dad was left to clear up afterwards. He tried burning the placenta on a bonfire, but it wouldn't burn, so he ended up burying it. I don't think he was thinking anything spiritual at the time

barnstaple · 27/03/2008 18:48

My cousin buried her placenta under a tree she planted to mark her son's birth; she's an 'alternative lifestyler' in New Zealand. She did the same with her daughter. It's extremely symbolic of something I cannot now remember.

Mercy · 27/03/2008 18:53

Same as Fragola! (iirc my brother's placneta is buried in the garden of my mum's house)

My mum said you could always tell when a baby had been born as you could smell the burning in the back garden soon afterwards.

sorkycake · 27/03/2008 18:58

We buried the placenta from ds2 in a huge plant pot housing an apple tree.

tree is very much alive and producing lots of fruit

moondog · 27/03/2008 19:01

I asked for a good look at mine but was too out of it to remember much. Something i regret is that I didn't ask to cut the cord.I would rather have liked to do that.

moondog · 27/03/2008 19:01

I asked for a good look at mine but was too out of it to remember much. Something i regret is that I didn't ask to cut the cord.I would rather have liked to do that.

tegan · 27/03/2008 19:08

When i had dd1 nearly 10 years age i brought my placenta home and we kept it in the freezer for about a year and then buried it under a tree, but when dd2 arrived nearly 4 years ago i wasn't allowed to bring it home for health and safety reasons apparently so will i be allowed to bring it home this time or not???

Mercy · 27/03/2008 19:09

Moondog, I had a good look at my first one - and had a poke! Dh cut the cord and said it was rather like gristle.

sorkycake · 27/03/2008 19:10

that's bolleaux Tegan, they're spinning you a line there.

It belongs to you.

moondog · 27/03/2008 19:11

Yes,I imagine it being all gristly and using a big old fashioned pair of scissors.

tegan · 27/03/2008 19:27

I have just rang 3 friends who all had babies in the same hospital as me in the last 5 years and they were all told the same.

I will hopefully get a homebirth this time so i will have it anyway.

Madlentileater · 27/03/2008 19:36

I was told mw will need to check the depth of the hole- thought this was a bit wierd, till it was explained that if a dog or whatever digs it up and moves it would then be very alarming, ie suggests someone may have given birth unattended, where is she, where is baby etc

horseshoe · 27/03/2008 20:02

So it's quite a common practice then?!?

I admit I had not heard of it until midwife mentioned that she had alot of requests like these in birthplans

I've just never thought of my placenta like that!!!!

OP posts:

sorkycake · 27/03/2008 20:04

yes we had to request it in the birth plan, I forgot about that

FourPlusOne · 27/03/2008 20:11

I wanted to do the burying it and planting a tree thing when pg with DC2 but DH thought I was being weird! Had home birth and the midwife did ask if I wanted to keep it IIRC, but by the time DD was born I didn't care and told her to take it away!

Think it's a nice idea though.

crimplene · 27/03/2008 20:15

I buried my placenta under a tree in the front garden (by dead of night in case the neighbours were looking). The tree's very happy and it's stopped it having to go in lots of plastic bags to be incinerated or landfilled at vast expense as 'clinical waste'. TBH, it was just there in the fridge after DS was born at home and we had to think of something to do with it. I'd grown the tree from seed in a pot. Now I'm worried that if we move, someone might chop down DS's special tree.

jaynz · 27/03/2008 20:35

I'm def not an 'alternative lifestyler' (although secretly I think I'd like to be!), and we buried ours, you have to bury them quite deep as they can 'poison' he tree because of the concentration of nutrients etc. We live in NZ and it is really common here. More people take it home than don't, and whichever they choose must be recorded in their notes. If they don't take it, its supposed to be labelled in case they change their minds.

It stems from a strong Maori tradition, the belief that your placenta is the connection to your family and the land. It is uaually taken and buried where your family comes from so often it is taken from one end of the country to the other. If it is nt buried, or not in the right place its believed to lead to unsettledness etc - kind of like a lost wandering spirit I suppose. It's also interesting that the word for land and placenta are the same - whenua.

I also think it's about respecting the job that it did all that time, and that it was the connection between mum and babe.

I can't believe that someone would say you couldn't have it. It's yours! How is it a biohazard, you're not exactly going to sling it into a vat of beans and dish it up to strangers!? No more than the baby's tummy button after it comes off !

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Mercy · 27/03/2008 20:43

jaynz - which part of NZ do you live in?

iirc none of my dh's siblings or cousins where offered this let alone take hte pacenta home!

horseshoe · 27/03/2008 21:29

I'm not too sure I would want it. I think the superstition if anything happened to the tree as a bad omen would get to me!!!

Superstitious Old Me!!

I dont know ANYBODY who has taken it home. I live in London. I guess it hasn't really been spoken about before. the most I concern myself with the placenta is whether or not I want the jab to extract it quicker or not. I dont think I even saw it with my first two labors!!

OP posts:

tearinghairout · 27/03/2008 21:33

My mum used to work with an Irish lady who had been a midwife in rural Ireland in the '50s. She told Mum that one day she accidentally left the placenta in a carrier bag on the bus...

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