Chrissy Teigen claims eating placenta helped her avoid postpartum depression after second pregnancy
Chrissy Teigen has been very open about her two pregnancies, having spoken on multiple occasions about the postpartum depression that she experienced following the birth of her first child Luna in 2016.
Three months ago, Teigen gave birth to her second child with husband John Legend, a son called Miles.
Teigen hasn’t experienced postpartum depression a second time around, and she believes this could be down to a certain something that she ate following the birth of Miles.
The model and presenter was speaking with Rita Braver for a CBS interview when she made the claim that eating the placenta after the birth of Miles may have helped her “avoid” postpartum depression.
“It sounds ridiculous, but people have this belief that if you eat your placenta, it gets all those nutrients that you lost when you were pregnant rather than just losing them immediately and losing that rush of endorphins,” she said.
“By taking these dry placenta pills you can kind of keep this energy up and be weaned off that feeling more.”
Teigen stated that she had felt regretful about not eating the placenta following the birth of her daughter Luna.
In 2015, a study conducted by researchers from Northwestern University concluded that there are no proven health benefits associated with eating the placenta.
“There are a lot of subjective reports from women who perceived benefits, but there hasn’t been any systematic research investigating the benefits or the risk of placenta ingestion,” explained Dr Crystal Clark, corresponding study author.
Lead author Cynthia Coyle, a psychologist and health system clinician at Feinberg School of Medicine, echoed Dr Clark’s views.
“Our sense is that women choosing placentophagy [the eating of the placenta], who may otherwise be very careful about what they are putting into their bodies during pregnancy and nursing, are willing to ingest something without evidence of its benefits and, more important, of its potential risks to themselves and their nursing infants,” she said.
Louise Silverton, director for midwifery at the Royal College of midwives, believes that women should have the freedom to choose whether they eat the placenta after giving birth or not.
“As a result [of the study at Northwestern University], midwives will not advise women about eating their placenta because of this lack of evidence, and it must be the woman’s choice if she chooses to do so,” she said.
“If a woman is intending to do this, they should discuss it with their midwife ahead of the birth so that arrangements can be made to ensure she gets her placenta."
