SHOULD NEW MUMS CONSUME THEIR PLACENTAS?

Kim Kardashian boasted of eating hers, while January Jones revealed that consuming hers allowed her to get back to the gruelling Mad Men filming schedule. Now, Zoe Marshall, wife of rugby NRL star Benji Marshall, is the latest celebrity to write of her experience about consuming her placenta after giving birth to the couple’s son, Fox.

‘This is me with my placenta in a shake, a small piece of fresh placenta blended with banana and berries and yes I drank it!’ Zoe wrote on her Instagram account, revealing that she had also had the organ made into capsules.

Mother-of-three Kim Kardashian was equally enthusiastic about eating her placenta: ‘I can’t go wrong with taking a pill made of my own hormones – made by me, for me. I started researching and read about so many mums who felt this same way and said the overall healing process was so much easier.’

January Jones slammed critics who viewed it as ‘witchcrafty’. As she says: ‘Your placenta gets dehydrated and made into vitamins. It’s something I was very hesitant about, but we’re the only mammals who don’t ingest our own placentas.’

While fans of the practice claim it boosts milk supply, helps replenish nutrients and can help protect against post-natal depression, medical experts disagree – with some saying it can be dangerous.

Putting aside the unsavoury aspects of eating your own body parts, American doctors last year warned against eating your placenta after a new mother passed on a potentially deadly blood infection to her breastfeeding baby after ingesting capsules made from her placenta.

The practice of placentophagy – eating your placenta – is ‘potentially harmful with no documented benefit’, according to a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Now, a Sydney doctor has slammed Zoe Marshall and other celebrities.

Nick Fuller, from the University of Sydney, says there is no evidence that it is beneficial for health.

‘Despite being purported for its benefits of a rich source of nutrition, around pain relief and being a source of hormones which help the uterus return to pre-pregnancy size and boost milk supply, none of this is evidence-based,’ he says.

‘The placenta safeguards the baby from harmful substances, such has heavy metals and bacteria, which can accumulate.’

Kim, Zoe and January have all joined the ‘yes’ side when it comes to eating their placentas.

‘BETWEEN SIX AND EIGHT IN THE MORNING, WE GET TO HAVE THEM IN OUR BED – I DON’T SCHEDULE ANY CALLS BEFORE EIGHT. WHEN I WAS NURSING, IT WAS MUCH MORE COMPLICATED.’ Amal Clooney, lawyer and mother of two.