What are you going to do with your placenta after you have a baby? Or to ask a more direct question, will you eat the placenta? I believe many people will be disgusted or frightened by this question. “Oh my god, eating the placenta, that’s not the same as eating human flesh! That’s scary!” I’m sure someone will say that. Yes, I was shocked when I heard about people eating their placentas during my OB/GYN internship, and I thought it was unheard of. However, it now seems that I was uninformed. Placenta can be eaten from a long time ago, it is said to pass as early as two thousand years ago, Qin Shi Huang in order to live forever, had eaten children, after the discovery of placenta longevity effect is better than the children’s bodies, the first emperor was ordered to the royal family of the top of the product, after the successive kings are placenta to prolong life, a lot of people will also be regarded as a great complement to modern phenomenon of selling phenomenon unceasingly. And, it is said that people in Europe and the United States will also eat the placenta of women after childbirth, because they believe that the placenta itself has a lot of nutrients and hormones, if the mother to eat their own placenta, but also to prevent postpartum depression. People who do not dare to eat the placenta directly, will choose to dehydrate the placenta to get dry, ground into powder to make capsules to swallow. Earlier, there are media reports, a British journalist in his wife is about to give birth before, on the weblog on the preview will be the placenta in a special way to stimulate eating, and then his wife successfully produced, he divided the placenta into two parts, part of it into a “banana placenta milkshake”, and another part of the plus spices into a “placenta tacos”. placenta tacos”, the placenta to eat a little bit left. Placenta effect is really so amazing? In traditional Chinese medicine, the placenta has a very nice name, called “Zi He Che”, according to the “Compendium of Materia Medica” records: warm and non-toxic, with warm kidneys, beneficial menstruation, tonic, blood and other effects. Treatment of male and female deficiency, yazhi trance. Its dried preparation is called “Zi He Che” or “Hun Yuan Yi”, which can be used for the treatment of uterine underdevelopment, female infertility, miscarriage, preterm labor and so on. Therefore, it is common to use medicines made from the placenta (e.g. placenta tissue fluid, placenta pigment) to treat these diseases. So, how is the placenta formed? The placenta consists of the amniotic membrane, the follicular chorionic villus (also known as the dense chorionic villus), and the underlying meconium. 1. Amniotic membrane constitutes the fetal part of the placenta and is the innermost layer of the placenta. The amnion is a translucent membrane attached to the surface of the chorionic plate. Amniotic membrane is smooth, without blood vessels, nerves and lymph, and has a certain degree of elasticity. The normal thickness of human amniotic membrane is 0.05mm. 2. Leafy chorionic villous membrane constitutes the fetal part of the placenta, accounting for the main part of the placenta in pregnancy. When the embryo develops to 13~21 days, chorionic villi, the main structure of the placenta, are gradually formed. The fetal-placental circulation is established when blood vessels form within the chorionic villi around the 3rd week after fertilization. The maternal uterine spiral artery (also known as the uteroplacental artery) passes through the meconium plate into the maternal lobe, and the exchange of substances between mother and child takes place in the chorionic villi of the fetal lobule, which means that fetal blood is exchanged through the umbilical artery up to the chorionic villus capillaries, through the exchange of substances with maternal blood in the chorionic villus interstitial space, and that the two do not communicate directly. Chorionic tissue structure: full-term gestation placenta chorionic trophoblast is mainly composed of syncytiotrophoblasts, cell trophoblasts are only scattered in the visible, trophoblastic layer of the inner layer of the basement membrane, with the role of placenta barrier. 3, the bottom of the meconium constitutes the maternal part of the placenta, accounting for a very small part of the full-term placenta. The surface of the bottom meconium is covered with a layer of trophoblast cells from the fixed chorionic villi and the bottom meconium to form the bottom of the chorionic villus gap, known as the meconium plate, from this plate to the direction of the chorionic villus membrane extends some meconium spacing, generally not more than 2/3 of the thickness of the whole layer of the placenta, will be divided into the maternal surface of the placental mother of the 20 or so visible to the naked eye of the maternal lobe. Human placenta has a more complex composition, including proteins, interferons, hormones and a variety of enzymes, the placenta in the end there is no magical effect, there is no definitive evidence, but the infected placenta clinically is not uncommon. The State Drug Administration has long been through expert research to reach a unanimous conclusion: “due to the source of placenta, virus detection, virus inactivation, process and the relationship between the active ingredient and other issues are difficult to resolve, fresh placenta products can not be approved for use as traditional Chinese medicine”. From this point of view, the most important problem of consuming placenta is the existence of serious safety hazards. The Chinese Pharmacopoeia 1990 edition states: “This product is the dried placenta of healthy people.” The key point is health. The concoction of Purple River Chestnut is also delicate, requiring fresh placenta to be removed from the amniotic membrane and umbilical cord, rinsed repeatedly until the blood is removed, and after the concoction method of steaming with peppercorns and yellow wine or placing it in boiling water to cook slightly, it is taken out of the sun to be dried or dried before it is made. However, in reality, the processing of placenta so delicate? Recently, there are media reports “bloody newborn placenta, after a simple rinse, scalding, drying, grinding into powder made into capsules for sale ……”, this is the reporter in the interview process to see the placenta processing scene. This processing workshop in the hospital next to an old residential neighborhood. Inside the house there are several cover the mouth and nose, waiting for the placenta processing customers. A small kitchen, a variety of cooking utensils, miscellaneous goods occupy the stove. The pool side of the placenta waiting to be processed, the pool under the trash can dripping with blood. A middle-aged man told reporters that the first step in processing the placenta is to rinse the placenta, in the doorway inside the washbasin. After rinsing, the placenta should be cut up, scalded with boiling water, and then put into the dryer to dry. Completely dry after grinding into powder, filling capsules, the whole process of one and a half hours. Reporter investigation found that only a well-known maternity hospital in Harbin near, there are two dozen placenta processing workshop. They generally lack sterilization facilities, poor sanitation, capsules are mostly three products. Such processing out of the placenta capsules, you dare to eat? Anyway, I dare not!