I am not above eating my placenta

Whoa now, stop the name calling. I know placenta eating isn't the most common practice in American homes and you may be concerned about my mental health. Let me put your mind at ease by assuring you I don't actually have a placenta to ingest, not above ground anyway. This Sunday my husband, children and I laid the partially frozen organ to rest under a young peach tree in honor of my home birth one year ago. But after reading an article in The Compleat Mother I'm feeling robbed of the experience of eating what nature gave me to balance out my post-natal hormones. The article I'm referring to was written by a woman who dealt with depression all her life and, instead of getting back on Wellbutrin after the birth of her second child, she dried her placenta, processed it into a fine powder and downed that sucker in capsule form for weeks. Her decision was well researched and based on scientific evidence that placentophagy (eating placenta) is highly beneficial. The result? Jodi Selander of Las Vegas, Nevada enjoyed a peaceful, joyous transition into life with their new addition, without drugs (and the bills that goes along with that). Jodi has now launched www.placentabenefits.info to help other mothers be more informed on this topic. I had heard of placenta capsules when I was pregnant but I had yet to experience post-partum depression so it disinterested me. But this past year has been tough and the depression oh-so-subtle. I was mostly angry, not sad. Angry at my little boy mostly, which is terrible to admit. I knew I was returning to my usual self, though, after petting one of our 6 cats- and realizing I hadn't touched them with affection in a year! When you think about the things people will eat or pill-pop, the idea really isn't that strange. People are human. Humans and animals. Many animals eat their afterbirth for strength and it would be a waste to leave a good source of iron and energy-dense nutrients around for the buzzards. And so, if we decide to have another child, the birth will be at home and my placenta will be ingested so we can all reap the benefits of a sane mother of three.