"Don't eat the placenta," doctors warn new parents

Proponents of the practice, which is called “placentophagy,” claim that eating the placenta can help with postpartum depression, improve lactation and increase energy. But a new review of studies finds that there are, in fact, no health benefits to eating the placenta. Instead, doing so carries risks for both the mother and her breast-feeding baby, the researchers said.

The review, which was published online in August in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, examined the existing research on placentophagy to determine if the practice has merit. The team found that the few clinical trials that had studied placentophagy found no benefit to the practice.