King's College London, London, UK.
BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2020 Mar 6;20(1):134. doi: 10.1186/s12884-020-2824-3.
The post-partum consumption of the placenta by the mother (placentophagy) has been practiced since the 1970s in the global North and is seemingly increasing in popularity. Maternal placentophagy is not known to have been practiced in any other time period or culture, despite being near-ubiquitous in other placental mammals. An in-depth qualitative exploration as to the reasons for the practice, its increasing popularity and how it is narratively incorporated into discourses surrounding "ideal" natural and medical births are given in this paper.
1752 posts from 956 users across 85 threads from the parenting forums Mumsnet and Netmums were identified for inclusion. A thematic discourse analysis was performed using NVivo.
Three main themes were identified: women recounted predominantly positive attitudes towards their own experiences of placentophagy, and they were respectful of others' views and experiences; some had negative views, particularly around the concept of disgust, but again, they were respectful of others' experiences. By far the most common method of consumption of the placenta was encapsulation.
This paper identifies the motivation for placentophagy to almost universally be for medical benefits, most commonly the prevention or treatment of post-natal depression (PND). Whilst disgust is a common reaction, discussion of risks is rare, and positive experiences outweigh negative ones. The increasing popularity of the practice is ascribed in part to the comparative palatability of encapsulation and the use of the internet to share resources and remove barriers. Parenting forums are important spaces to negotiate normative birth practices, including placentophagy, and act to build communities of women who value personal experience over medical evidence and highly value personal choice and bodily autonomy. Placentophagy is discussed in terms of its relation to natural and medical births with arguments being made using both discourses for and against the practice. This paper argues that placentophagy is practiced as a resistance to medicalisation as an assertion of control by the mother, whilst simultaneously being a medicalised phenomenon itself.
自 20 世纪 70 年代以来，全球北方的母亲开始食用胎盘（胎盘食入），而且这种做法似乎越来越流行。尽管在其他胎盘哺乳动物中几乎普遍存在，但在其他任何时期或文化中都没有发现过这种做法。本文深入探讨了这种做法的原因、其日益普及的原因，以及它是如何被纳入围绕“理想”自然分娩和医疗分娩的话语中的。
从育儿论坛 Mumsnet 和 Netmums 中确定了 85 个主题中的 956 位用户的 1752 个帖子进行分析。使用 NVivo 进行主题话语分析。
确定了三个主要主题：女性普遍对自己食用胎盘的经历持积极态度，她们尊重他人的观点和经历；有些人持负面观点，特别是对厌恶的概念，但她们同样尊重他人的经历。迄今为止，食用胎盘最常见的方法是封装。
本文确定了食用胎盘几乎普遍是为了获得医疗益处的动机，最常见的是预防或治疗产后抑郁症（PND）。虽然厌恶是一种常见的反应，但很少讨论风险，积极的经验超过了消极的经验。这种做法的日益普及部分归因于封装的相对可接受性，以及互联网用于分享资源和消除障碍。育儿论坛是协商规范生育实践的重要空间，包括胎盘食入，并建立了重视个人经验而非医学证据、高度重视个人选择和身体自主权的女性社区。胎盘食入被讨论与自然分娩和医疗分娩的关系，用支持和反对这种做法的两种话语来论证。本文认为，胎盘食入是作为对医学化的一种抵制而实践的，是母亲控制的一种表现，同时它本身也是一种医学化现象。
