Where placenta goes after baby comes

*warning: this might get a little ‘icky’ so steel yourself*

Placenta - an ephemeral organ present only in female placental mammals during gestation

After 2 weeks of “OMG it’s coming!” and then the embarrassed “oops, false alarm” after the hospital visit, I gave vicarious birth this afternoon. It’s actually technically more sound to say that I was present at a birth… ok, more precisely: I got there after all the labour, just in time to see the placenta come and the baby getting cleaned up (before the door was slammed in my curious face). It was a natural birth with an episiotomy, and the little I got to see looked like the midwife helping the placenta out. I was peeping in, did not have front row seats and like I said, as soon as my presence was noted, I was banished to the other side of the door.

I saw one of the nurses bring out the placenta and place it in a biohazard bin. Baby was giving healthy(?) wails, and the new mother little gasps of pain as the attending nurse (on the other side of the door) said “no don’t do that, otherwise I won’t see”… she was suturing the cut.

Let me just state here that as a woman who’s not a mother, I find it hard to understand why we women would go through all this, and then turn around and allow anyone to mess with us! A discussion for another day, no doubt.

I was eventually banished from the ward entirely (too inquisitive) and directed to sit waaaaay outside in the visitor section from where I would be called (at the right moment) to see mother and child as they were wheeled by to their room [only the contributor of the other 23 chromosomes is allowed into the ward room to see his progeny. The rest of us can only hope for glimpses. Why? To give the pregnant women privacy. At a public facility such as this one, the labour and post-natal ward are not seperated, so at any given moment there's a naked woman (hospital gown does not equal clothed) with her waters breaking, another walking the hall in labour... something the hospital feels should be witnessed by as few strangers as possible].

A few minutes later I went to check if "they were there yet" and was informed they were not ready yet.....A few minutes later.... I needed question answered:

“What do you do with the placentas?”
Nurse 1: they get incinerated

“So if I wanted to go home with my (baby’s) placenta I can’t just pack it up and go?”
Nurse 1: Nope. You’re not allowed access to it.

(me, incredulous)“Even when it’s mine??!”
Nurse 1: what do you want with the placenta anyway?
Nurse 2: yes, that would go against the human tissues act
Nurse 3: but the muslims go home with theirs

“What was that? The muslims take theirs home? Why?”
Nurse 3: Well, if you need the placenta back whatever your religion or reason, you have to arrange to get it back ahead of time. You can’t just show up, give birth and leave with it… you must have permission.

(then to Nurse 1) “Placenta is said to be a goldmine of stem cells, cells that have not yet decided what they’ll become and can therefore be manipulated to become anything.” [this from watching midnight reruns of law & order, plus I was at a clinic not long ago where I saw brochures advertising cryogenic storage of your baby’s umbilical cord blood , so I wondered what else – other than the TomKat stirfry suggestion - can be done with the placenta).

“You don’t use them for research?”
Nurse 2 (laughing): It would take a whole lot of money to do research on each and every placenta, and being a public hospital that would be pretty wasteful. The ones taken for histology are the abnormal ones, still births or abnormally large babies, that sort of thing. All others are incinerated.

So, briefly:

- You can’t take it home
- If you need to take it home for any reason, get permission ahead of time.
- If you give birth at home, come to the hospital with the baby and the placenta.
-They can tell a lot from the placenta e.g. if the baby is abnormal, you can tell what went wrong and at what point from the placenta.

Now, back to the whole cryogenic freezing of your baby’s stem cells so that your baby has spare parts if something goes wrong with their organs in their lifetime. Really great idea, costs you about R 6,500 (excluding VAT) to collect and process, and only R120 (excluding VAT) for annual storage. Small price to pay to ensure your baby’s future health, right? But back on the ranch, “genetic manipulation of gametes or zygotes outside the human body is absolutely prohibited by the Human Tissue Act of 1983”. Is the service a con, or are they keeping their fingers crossed that someday soon the act will change to favor technological advancement. hmmm.