Ramanisblog

Tag: Postpartum depression

  • ‘Placenta Eating’ Post Postpartum Depression, Woman Collects

    Some people believe that eating placenta will beat the postpartum Depression.

    This practice has assumed such proportions that woman collects placenta and sells them!

    But Scientific evidence does not seem to support this.

    ”

    Human Placenta.
    Human Placenta.

    Although the placenta is revered in many cultures, there is scarce evidence that any customarily eat the placenta after the newborn’s birth.[4] Despite an urban legend that the Basque people ate placentas, there is no evidence that they ever did,[4] and the Euskara word for placenta, karena, is not etymologically related to their word for cannibalism, gizajana.

    Those who advocate placentophagy in humans believe that eating the placenta prevents postpartum depression and other pregnancy complications.[5] Obstetrician and spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Maggie Blott disputes the post-natal depression theory, stating there is no medical reason to eat the placenta; “Animals eat their placenta to get nutrition – but when people are already well-nourished, there is no benefit, there is no reason to do it.”[6] On the other hand, American Medical anthropologists at the University of South Florida and UNLV, surveyed new mothers, and found that about 3/4 had positive experiences from eating their own placenta, citing “improved mood”, “increased energy”, and “improved lactation”.[7] [8]

    Human placenta has also been an ingredient in some traditional Chinese medicines,[9] including using dried human placenta, known as “Ziheche” (simplified Chinese:紫河车; traditional Chinese: 紫河車; pinyin: Zǐhéchē), to treat wasting diseases, infertility, impotence and other conditions.[10]

    British celebrity chef Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall, known for his series of River Cottage programmes, notoriously cooked and ate a woman’s placenta on one of his programmes.[11]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placentophagy

    Those brave enough to eat a placenta use a variety of methods to consume the organ. But are there any real health benefits to this gustatory practice?

    Warning: An image of a human placenta and an instructional video for preparing a human placenta follows.

    The placenta is a temporary protective organ that serves as a conduit between the mother and her developing young. The child is fed is through the placenta via the mother’s blood supply, as waste from the young exits to the mother for disposal. The placenta follows the newborn as it exits the mother, leaving in the moments after childbirth.

    In the wild, land dwelling mammals often consume the placenta. They also lap up the amniotic fluid as it flows out of the mother. The amniotic fluid consists of proteins, urea, and assorted fats, but we have yet to see a rush of new parents to drink amniotic fluid smoothies.

    Mammalian consumption of the placenta is likely performed as it removes the lingering presence of blood in order to ward off predators, with one study showing placentophagy to provide an increase in natural opioids in rats.

    The precedence of placentophagy in the wild leads some soon-to-be parents to wonder if they should be eating placenta after childbirth. The practice of human placentophagy brings with it claims that the act reduces post-partum depression and imparts a further connection between the mother and child. Both of these benefits could be the psychological result of a placebo effect.

    More concrete benefits have been proposed as well, with placentophagy replenishing iron, aiding in lactation, and giving the mother a rush of stress relieving hormones, likecorticotropin-releasing hormone. The amount of corticotropin-releasing hormone created by the placenta increases dramatically prior to birth, leading proponents to believe the birthed placenta still contains a high concentration of this hormone.

    While the placenta itself may be of nutritional benefit, do these benefits exist in a placenta prepared for human consumption?

    Cooking Up Some Placenta
    A typical placenta, when disconnected from the umbilical cord, is a deep red mass roughly 8 to 10 inches long, an inch or so thick, and weighing about a pound. Imagine a piece of raw flesh about size of a nice piece of prime rib, but filled with fibrous tissue that is rather tough to chew through.

    While see land dwelling mammals consume the placenta raw, humans that partake in the placenta consume it in a variety of forms – prepared as a lasagna, ground up in a smoothie, or in pill form.

    Cooking the placenta in any form could degrade the proteins within, decreasing the nutritive quality of the organ by imparting heat as well combined with a natural degradation of the organ over time as it exists without a nutrient supply. Small molecule hormones are often rather small, however, and difficult to rip apart at temperatures used for food preparation. Grinding the placenta into a powder for use in pills often involves boiling and drying of the flesh as well.

    For optimal benefit, eating the placenta in the hours after it passes through the mother would be necessary. However, obtaining the placenta in a timely fashion is a chore in itself, as hospitals are often reticent to release the placenta and it can be difficult to grab it in the chaos that follows birth.

    “

    Susan Stewart collects fresh human placentas, takes them home and steams them with lemon, ginger and cayenne pepper. Once cooked, she puts the organs in a dehydrator overnight then grinds them and measures the powder out into gel capsules.

    The service – the Calgary single mother makes a living at this – costs about $200.

    Within a day, she presents new moms with their placentas in pill form – an average human placenta yields about 150 capsules – with promises of renewed energy, better lactation and no post-partum depression. They keep indefinitely.

    Placenta-eating has gained some cachet among the natural-birth set, including Mad Men’s January Jones. Ms. Stewart said she became interested in it in 2009, after she was knocked down by depression following the birth of her first child, and she could see little downside from trying it.

    Resource:

    http://www.reddit.com/tb/1c7rju

    http://io9.com/5960569/the-questionable-nutritional-value-of-eating-a-human-placenta

    http://www.purebirth.ca/

    Related:

    Breastfeeding Protects Babies
    1. Early breast milk is liquid gold.
    Known as liquid gold, colostrum (coh-LOSStrum) is the thick yellow first breast milk that  you make during pregnancy and just after birth.
    This milk is very rich in nutrients and antibodies to protect your baby.

    Although your baby only gets a small amount of colostrum at each feeding, it matches the amount his or her tiny stomach can hold.
    2. Your breast milk changes as your baby grows. Colostrum changes into what is called mature milk.

    By the third to fifth day after birth, this mature breast milk has just the right amount of fat, sugar, water, and protein to help your baby continue to grow.

    http://ramanisblog.in/2012/08/02/breast-feeding-details-advantages-mother-child/

  • Father Kills Baby-acquitted as ‘he suffered from post natal depression’

    Beautiful baby: Harriet Bruton-Young died aged just 6 months Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1390463/Mark-Bruton-Young-acquitted-murdering-baby-suffered-post-natal-depression.html#ixzz1NLKrL01f

    What high-sounding non-sense!

    He should have been awarded death penalty.

    A depressed father who trawled the internet for ways to kill babies before his daughter was found dead in her cot spoke of his ‘long ordeal’ as he walked free from court yesterday.

    Architect Mark Bruton-Young posed smiling with his wife, who has stood by him throughout, after being found not guilty of murdering their baby Harriet.

    During his two-week trial, the prosecution claimed he had smothered six-month-old Harriet with a pillow after struggling with male post-natal depression.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1390463/Mark-Bruton-Young-acquitted-murdering-baby-suffered-post-natal-depression.html#ixzz1NLKJJtgP

  • Depression as Deadly as Smoking, Study Finds

    Depression and anxiety can be tackled only by the individual concerned.Medicines and counseling can go only thus far.What is needed is understanding of some facts.
    Out of desire comes attachment,from attachment expectations,expectations lead to lead to frustration,it leads to depression.
    We have had many desires during our life time.If we sit down and ponder what was interesting and pleasurable at one point of time , no longer excites us, at times repugnant right now..The things we desired for retain their nature then and now.Then why we do not get the same pleasure out of it?Reason is that pleasure does not lie in things per se.They are our attitudes towards them. When the attitude changes, the whole picture changes.Therefore accept things in life as they are and not attach value to it.Do not carry it forward for our attitude may change and we may even be unhappy about the the things we liked.This is the truth.
    Anxiety arises when we feel what we have done or achieved is not enough or things do not happen the way we want them to happen.If we are sure we have done our best, that is it.We can do no more.Accept your limitations.Do not set your goals too high.Remember,whatever you achieve is naught when you depart.
    Things happen, controlled by various factors ,us being only a factor and not THE factor.As said earlier do your best and leave it at that.
    Another reason for depression and anxiety is comparisons .No two things in the world are identical ;at best they are similar.Never try to be other than what you are.You too have a function and a purpose in the scheme of the Universe.
    These are few tips to beat anxiety and depression

    ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2009) — A study by researchers at the University of Bergen, Norway, and the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King’s College London has found that depression is as much of a risk factor for mortality as smoking.

    Utilising a unique link between a survey of over 60,000 people and a comprehensive mortality database, the researchers found that over the four years following the survey, the mortality risk was increased to a similar extent in people who were depressed as in people who were smokers.
    Dr Robert Stewart, who led the research team at the IoP, explains the possible reasons that may underlie these surprising findings: ‘Unlike smoking, we don’t know how causal the association with depression is but it does suggest that more attention should be paid to this link because the association persisted after adjusting for many other factors.’
    The study also shows that patients with depression face an overall increased risk of mortality, while a combination of depression and anxiety in patients lowers mortality compared with depression alone. Dr Stewart explains: ‘One of the main messages from this research is that ‘a little anxiety may be good for you’.
    ‘It appears that we’re talking about two risk groups here. People with very high levels of anxiety symptoms may be naturally more vulnerable due to stress, for example through the effects stress has on cardiovascular outcomes. On the other hand, people who score very low on anxiety measures, i.e. those who deny any symptoms at all, may be people who also tend not to seek help for physical conditions, or they may be people who tend to take risks. This would explain the higher mortality.’
    In terms of the relationship between mortality and anxiety with depression as a risk factor, the research suggests that help-seeking behaviour may explain the pattern of outcomes. People with depression may not seek help or may fail to receive help when they do seek it, whereas the opposite may be true for people with anxiety.
    Dr Stewart comments: ‘It would certainly not surprise me at all to find that doctors are less likely to investigate physical symptoms in people with depression because they think that depression is the explanation, but may be more likely to investigate if someone is anxious because they think it will reassure them. These are conjectures but they would fit with the data.’
    The researchers point out that the results should be considered in conjunction with other evidence suggesting a variety of adverse physical health outcomes and poor health associated with mental disorders such as depression and psychotic disorders.
    In light of the findings, Dr Stewart makes suggestions on the focus of future developments in the treatment of depression and anxiety: ‘The physical health of people with current or previous mental disorder needs a lot more attention than it gets at the moment.
    ‘This applies to primary care, secondary mental health care and general hospital care in the sense that there should be more active screening for physical disorders and risk factors, such as blood pressure, cholesterol, adverse diet, smoking, lack of exercise, in people with mental disorders. This should be done in addition to more active treatment of disorders when present, and more effective general health promotion
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091117094933.htm