Do you allow patients to take home their placentas if desired? more

Specialties Ob/Gyn

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I know this has probably been discussed before but I didn't find it when I searched.

Do you allow patients to take home their placentas if desired?

Do they have to sign anthing in order to do so?

Do you address this in your policies?

This doesn't come up often for us but it did last night and the patient was told no under the umbrella of "biohazardous waste".

Thanks for any feedback!

Cheers,

mm

some cosemtice companies actually use placentas to use in some make up. a nurse told a friendd who delivered a few weeks ago that some hospitals actually sell placentas to these companies.

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some cosemtice companies actually use placentas to use in some make up. a nurse told a friendd who delivered a few weeks ago that some hospitals actually sell placentas to these companies.

this used to be the cse years ago but don't think it happens anymore due to biohazard concerns. Ours go in the trash :(

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Specializes in L&D.

The last two places I've worked don't sell placentas, but the first hospital I worked sold the placentas. Some said it was to a cosmetics company, but it was really to a company that used it to produce gama globulin. A while later, they started putting a bottle on the delivery table to collect the cord blood. It was used for producing sera for type and screening. Later, they started cutting off the cords after striping out all the blood and saving them in saline for use in saphenous vein transplants--it was a good source of a long, unbranched vein. This wasn't big money, I think we got $.50 for the placenta and $.25 each for the blood and the cord. Not a lot of money, but even back then we did over 500 deliveries a month, so it added up.

This was all before AIDS, so they probably don't do it anymore. I do remember that the staff used to keep our ice cream in the placenta freezer though. How times change.

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I do remember that the staff used to keep our ice cream in the placenta freezer though. How times change.

I love placentas as much as the next guy, and plan to save mine with this pregnancy to plant a tree, but :barf01:

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Specializes in labor and delivery.
if you specifically ask people if they want the placenta, about 1 out of every 20 will say yes and take it home.

I think that's great that you ask people if they'd like it - - very sensitive! At out hospital we certainly do allow (for lack of a better word) our clients to take their placenta home. We place them in biohazard bags, we really don't have anything else, and send them on their way. No paperwork to sign.

I don't know if they still do but Alta Bates in Berkeley, CA would send their clients home with their placenta and a little treeling to plant over it.

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their

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I love placentas as much as the next guy, and plan to save mine with this pregnancy to plant a tree, but :barf01:

Here ya go . . . . .:D

https://allnurses.com/forums/f35/lotus-birth-what-do-yall-think-about-94862.html

steph

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

I'm pretty crunchy so if people want to do whatever they want to do with their placenta, you know, who am I to tell them they can't? No harm done.

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You know what, I would carry my baby's placenta around for six months before I would be able to eat food kept next to placentas... just a personal hang-up I guess. Thanks for the link.

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Evidently in the Hmong culture in their homelands in the east, they would bury the placenta under their beds in the soil. When a person dies the soul goes to all the places the person has lived and has to go back to place of the placenta. Their word for placenta means 'jacket' and it is worn in birth and in death according to them.

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Yep I show all the women I care for too. It is a most amazing organ! Apparently good to eat too, but thats another story!!!!:uhoh3::uhoh3::uhoh3::lol2::lol2::lol2:

Placenta is sold in China as a delicacy for 10USD and is made into dumplings.

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