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Shanghai.
After Wang Lan delivered, she brought home a baby girl and her placenta, which
she plans to eat in a soup — adopting an age-old practice in Chinese
traditional medicine.
But
placentophagy — the practice of eating one’s placenta after birth — is
relatively common in China, where it is thought to have anti-ageing properties,
and dates back more than 2,000 years.
“It is in
the refrigerator now and I am waiting for my mother to come and cook it to eat.
After cleaning, it can be stewed for soup, without that fishy smell,” Wang
said, adding she believed it would help her recover from delivery.
Qin
Shihuang, the first emperor of a unified China, is said to have designated
placenta as having health properties some 2,200 years ago, and during China’s
last dynasty, the dowager empress Cixi was said to have eaten it to stay young.
A classic
medical text from the Ming Dynasty (1368--1644) said placenta — which lines the
uterus and is key to the survival of the foetus — was “heavily nutritious” and
“if taken for the longer term... longevity will be achieved.”
China’s
state media says the practice of eating placenta has re-emerged over the past
decade. One maternity hospital in the eastern city of Nanjing reported that
about 10 percent of new parents took their placenta after childbirth.
Internet
postings swap recipes on how to prepare placenta. One popular health website
suggests soup, dumplings, meat balls or mixing it with other kinds of
traditional Chinese medicine.
While trade
in the organs has been banned since 2005, pills containing placentas ground
into powder are legally available in Chinese pharmacies — indicating unwanted
placenta is somehow making its way to drug companies.
“It is a
tonic to fortify the ‘qi’ and enrich the blood,” a traditional medicine doctor
at Shanghai’s Lei Yun Shang pharmacy said, referring to the “life force” that
practitioners believe flows through the body.
“Sales are
very good. Basically, every time we have supplies, they sell out very quickly,”
a clerk at the shop told AFP.
And it’s
not just mothers who want to eat the placenta.
One new
father in Shanghai who did not want to be named said his relatives were eager
to try the sought-after item. “My wife and I were still in the hospital... and
they ate it,” he said.
But strong
demand has created a thriving black market with hospitals, medical workers and
even mothers selling placentas in violation of the law.
Last year,
authorities investigated a hospital in the southern city of Guangzhou for
selling placentas for 20 yuan ($2) apiece.
“They
(nurses) take the money and use it to buy breakfast,” a source told a the local
Xin Kuai newspaper.
They fetch
a higher price in other parts of China like the eastern city of Jinan, where
dealers ask as much as 300 yuan per placenta, most sourced from hospitals, the
Jinan Times said last year.
Last month,
South Korean customs said they had uncovered multiple attempts to illegally
import over 17,000 capsules apparently containing the powdered flesh of dead
babies.
Experts
have said the pills may actually be made from human placenta, raising concerns
that China’s trade in the organs has started to go international.
Some
people, meanwhile, are averse to the idea of eating the organ.
“I know
it’s good for health, but the idea of eating human flesh is just disgusting. I
cannot do it,” said Shanghai accountant Grace Jiang, who opted to leave the
placenta after giving birth to her son.
Agence France-Presse
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