A Job Studs Terkel Missed: Placenta Preparer

New York explores the trend of eating placentas, and the people paid to prepare them

Not only is eating one's own placenta a trend among new mothers, it's brought along a new career opportunity: professional placenta preparer. A New York magazine article about the latest movement in alternative birthing featured a young woman named Jennifer Mayer, whose job it is to "to transform placentas into supplements that are said to alleviate postpartum depression, aid in breastmilk production and lactation, act as a uterine tonic, and replenish nutrients lost during pregnancy." She normally dries and grinds the placentas and forms them into capsuls. But not all women who have joined the placenta-eating movement prefer the pill form. Another placenta preparer, Alexa Beckham, creates capsules for her clients but went raw with her own afterbirth:

“After I gave birth, I threw a chunk of placenta in the Vitamix with coconut water and a banana,” she adds. “It gave me the wildest rush. You know the feeling of drinking green juice on an empty stomach? It’s like that, but much more intense. It was definitely physical.”

Some eat the dried placenta in chunks instead of grinding it up. The reported taste, according to one client of Mayer's: "Dry, gamy, bland jerky."