Placenta pill power: Encapsulation is catching on in Kansas City

For weeks following the birth of her first son, Morgan Jones felt angry and overwhelmed.

“It was very illogical,” says Jones, who lives in Lee’s Summit.

“I had this beautiful baby in front of me, and I didn’t want anything to do with it.”

Her symptoms were typical of postpartum depression, a serious mood disorder that affects up to 1 in 7 mothers. Other symptoms include anxiety, sadness and insomnia. Unlike the “baby blues,” postpartum depression doesn’t go away on its own. It’s often treated with antidepressants, but many women say they’ve found a natural alternative: Consuming their placentas in pill form.

The practice, called placenta encapsulation, involves ingesting the organ after it has been cleaned, steamed, dehydrated, ground into powder and pressed into capsules. It has roots in traditional Chinese medicine and has become more common in the United States over the past 10 years, thanks in part to endorsements from celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and January Jones.

Proponents say the hormones and nutrients in the placenta help alleviate postpartum depression, lactation problems and postnatal bleeding. But there’s little scientific evidence to support those claims. And many women just can’t stomach the idea.

“I thought it was weird,” Morgan Jones says, “like a voodoo-type thing.”

But by her fourth baby, she was willing to try anything that could possibly help her postpartum depression. In 2011, after her daughter was born at home, Jones encapsulated her placenta using instructions from online articles and tutorials. She says the pills worked wonders.

“I had tons of energy, and I felt happy,” Jones says.

“I felt like me.”

A growing business

Jones continued her research into encapsulation, and by mid-2012 she was making placenta pills for other Kansas City-area moms. Her company, Fruit of Labor Placenta Encapsulation, is one of several in the Kansas City area that specialize in the service.

Placenta encapsulation is not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, but specialists follow the bloodborne pathogens standard laid out by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA. Some also acquire food handlers permits from their local health departments.

Kansas City-area placenta encapsulation specialists typically charge between $200 and $300 for the service. Their methods vary.

Some specialists dehydrate the placenta from its raw state because they say that preserves more nutrients. Others insist that the traditional Chinese medicine method of steaming the placenta is safer because it kills bacteria. Some specialists conduct the encapsulation in their clients’ kitchens; others work from home.

Andrea Cahill operates her 3-year-old business, Placenta Encapsulation KC, from her house in Raymore. She built a second kitchen with a stainless steel ventilation system and uses it exclusively for encapsulation to limit the risk of cross-contamination.

Cahill previously worked as a photographer. She started the encapsulation business with one or two clients per month, and now averages 15.

Cahill says local hospitals have become more accepting of placenta encapsulation. Doctors and nurses used to eye her suspiciously when she showed up to retrieve her clients’ placentas. Now, many hospitals allow mothers to stash their afterbirth in ice-filled coolers. And it’s rare for Cahill to get side-eyed.

“They know what I’m there for, and it’s not a big deal at all,” she says.

Women who opt for encapsulation must get permission from their hospital to keep their placentas. Shawnee Mission Birth Center, which delivers more babies than any other hospital in the Kansas City area, doesn’t track those requests. But their frequency has increased over the past three years, says Laurie McElwain, program coordinator for women’s and children’s services.

“This is not weird or gross anymore,” McElwain says. “It’s so commonplace.”

McElwain says medical professionals can’t recommend placenta encapsulation to new mothers because there are no scientific studies that prove it works. But they don’t prohibit it, either.

“If they want to do it, we totally support them,” she says.

The hospital’s policy is to release the placenta unless it is abnormal, or if there’s a problem with the baby. Families must bring their own coolers.

“We have refrigerators in the room, but they are for food,” McElwain says. “No, you can’t put it in there with your Dr Pepper.”

The birth of a trend

Jodi Selander might be the mother of the placenta pill movement.

In 2005, the Las Vegas-based software engineer was pregnant and searching for a way to avoid the crippling postpartum depression she experienced after her first child. Selander had tried antidepressants but hoped to find a natural cure. When an acupuncturist suggested she just eat her placenta after giving birth, Selander balked.

Placentophagy — the act of eating the afterbirth — is common among many mammals. Exceptions include whales, dolphins, camels and, in most cases, humans. Selander wasn’t willing to go there, but she was willing to consume placenta in pill form. After her daughter was born, she processed the organ using methods outlined in traditional Chinese medicine, and then popped the capsules like vitamins. She was amazed by the results.

“With my first daughter, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck,” Selander says. With the capsules, “I felt completely normal.”

Selander coined the term placenta encapsulation and started providing the service to other women. Over the past 10 years, she has worked with more than 1,000 clients, including TV personality and best-selling author Holly Madison.

Through her company, Placenta Benefits, Selander developed a safety-focused training course for encapsulation specialists and founded an annual postpartum wellness conference called PlacentaCon. Placenta Benefits has about 300 active members in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.

“I never set out to become the placenta lady,” Selander says. Nevertheless, it has become her mission to educate women about the option of encapsulation.

Selander has pushed hospitals to allow women to keep their placentas. She also worked with researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on a double-blind study testing placenta pills against placebos. Selander doesn’t know the results — she was insulated from the data to avoid a conflict of interest — but researchers will probably publish them this year.

Safety first

Although placenta encapsulation has become more common, it’s still far from mainstream.

“I’ve been in practice 27 years, and I’ve only had two moms that have done it,” says Peter Caruso, an obstetrician and gynecologist at St. Luke’s Medical Group Southridge.

Caruso doesn’t recommend the practice to his patients. He says if a patient wanted to try it, he would advise her to hire a trained specialist. Blood is a medium for bacteria growth, he explains, so it’s important for the placenta to be cleaned and dehydrated properly.

Ariel Vickery, an Independence-based encapsulation specialist who is certified through Placenta Benefits, says safety is her top concern.

“I want to do everything I possibly can to maintain the safety of my clients so there’s not a risk of sickness,” she says.

On a recent Friday morning, Vickery drove 40 minutes to a client’s home in suburban Kansas City, Kan. She arrived in lime green scrubs, with her auburn hair tucked into a tight bun. A black plastic cart corralled a stash of supplies that included paper towels, sanitizing solution and a NutriBullet blender.

Vickery went straight to the kitchen and added latex gloves and a medical mask to her outfit. She sanitized the countertops before covering them with waxed paper, then checked on the steamed placenta strips she had placed in her dehydrator the day before. Vickery typically starts the two-day encapsulation process within 72 hours of birth to preserve the hormones and nutrients in the placenta.

After confirming that the placenta was properly dehydrated, Vickery placed the strips in the jar of the NutriBullet.

“This is going to be loud,” she said before the blender pulverized the beef jerky-like strips into powder the color of cocoa.

Vickery coaxed the powder onto a plexiglass capsule machine, which looks like a clear Battleship game board with multivitamin-sized indentations. Once all 100 clear capsules were full, she pressed down on a plate of matching caps, and popped the pills into a jar. She left the jar on the counter with instructions on dosage and proper storage. The printouts included a list of potential side effects (headache, night sweats, “the burps”) and a message warning new moms to stop taking the pills if they come down with a cold, the flu or an infection.

When Vickery discusses her business, Postpartum Peace, with new people, she tells them she makes biological supplements for new mothers.

“If you say ‘placenta,’ that’s all they hear,” she says.

Still taboo

Placenta encapsulation is still considered taboo.

When Michelle Marlow considered trying it after experiencing postpartum depression twice, her husband was appalled.

“He was like, ‘I can’t even believe you’re thinking about this,’ ” says Marlow, who lives in Parkville.

Marlow’s whole family came around to the idea once they saw how quickly she recovered from her third birth. She convinced four cousins to try placenta encapsulation for themselves.

Bethany Campbell of Lenexa found out about it from a friend. When she became pregnant with her first child, Campbell also opted for encapsulation.

“My husband and I are close to someone who has pretty severe postpartum depression,” Campbell says. “For us it was like, ‘Why not?’ ”

Megan Mejia of Kansas City, Kan., says people think it’s weird that she had her placenta made into pills. But she doesn’t let social stigma stop her from talking about it with other women.

“After going through postpartum depression,” Mejia says, “you will do anything to prevent feeling that way again.”

Selander says that placenta encapsulation’s biggest hurdle is the placenta itself. Many see it as gross, but Selander says it’s an essential component in the creation of life that should be celebrated, not shunned.

“It nourishes the baby inside the womb,” Selander says, and then, “it nourishes the mom.”

This story was originally published February 1, 2016 at 2:50 PM with the headline "Placenta pill power: Encapsulation is catching on in Kansas City."