Is eating placenta a form of cannibilism ?

I promise this really happened to me in nursing school. We had to do a 13 week community health rotation. We were assigned 3 families. One with an ill child, one with a pregnant female, and one with just somebody in the home sick. We had to make weekly visits and devise careplans etc. I had been following my patients weekly and I knew the pregnant lady was getting close. One morning I knocked on the door and the child of the family let me in. I was immediately nauseated by the worse smell I had ever smelled. I went to the ladys room and she was holding the baby....proud as a peacock. She asked me to go to the kitchen to get her mother who had come to help 'deliver the baby.' I somehow walked to that kitchen. The mother was standing at the stove SCRAMBLING the chopped placenta into some SCRAMBLED eggs!!! I almost puked right there. I asked to use the phone, phoned my instructor and told her that she could kick me out of school or whatever, but I was leaving! She told me to report back to the health department and advise them that the baby was born. It smelled 500 times worse than liver does when it is cooking. Yes, to me it is cannibilism, as it is human tissue. Whether it is right or wrong...I guess that has to be left to the individual!

Cannibilism or not I could absolutely not gag that down if it were sauteed with mushrooms and onions, then served on a bed of rice. Sounds like something out of a Fear Factor episode. Yuck!

i couldn't bring myself to look at the recipes because i think it is disgusting. how can people even think of eating that, that is one thing that seperates us from animals. what is next that if we have a small baby that we will kill it like some animals do with the runt of the liter?

I've never heard of this before.In my country we burried them.This is simply disgusting,how can someone eat this it comes from inside a person.Although,i dont think its cannibalism but its just gross.yuck!

Wow until now I've never heard of such a thing in my entire life. I think this is the most unimaginable and disgusting thing I ever read before, how do people get a hold of placentas anyway? Thats straight up nasty, if this does exsist it needs to be recognized as a serious problem cuz humans shouldnt be eating those things.

I have had 4 kids and not once did I think about eating my placenta. When I saw the placentas, I thought it was gross looking. For those people that eat it, they must really have a strong stomach. ugh!

well thats someing ive never put any thought into before lol i supose you have a point there it is cannibilisum.and to tell you the truth after seeing one when my daughter was born the last thing i was thinking about was eatting it.but it was pointed out to me that it was practiced and back in the dark ages i suppose it was common but its not for me soon as i was out of the i grabbed some maccas chips and a drink lol

Yuk is my response. And it is a form, even indirect, of cannibilism. No thank you I say, I'm with you.

i find it repulsive and yes it does soundlike canibalism, yet i know its popular in some cultures, guess its just part of the great diversity of life

mmmm..placenta spaghetti! that is just sick, but to each their own i guess. I don't think it's really cannbilism since your not technically eating person but i just have to say YUCK!

That's just gross. I would never even consider doing that, its just too creepy. I don't understand what kind of health benefits you could get that would justify going that far. I remember something about those whacky scientologists supposedly eating the placenta of their babies.

Although I could never eat it, ugh just thinking of it makes it hard for me to keep my dinner down..lol Some cultures believe that eating the placenta after the child is born will help with postpartum depression. (Although that is still to be scientifically proven) Although to me eating anything human flesh related I believe it to be cannabalism. And it's just not something I would do...*blick*

I can't even imagine why anyone would want to do such thing. I find it extremely disgusting and repulsive. And i believe it is considered canibalism because it's a part of the human body.

I think that eating any sort if Human tissue is Cannibalism, I remember, reading something about people eat a placenta has a ritual for some kind of religion or something of that sort. The thought of eating one; no I would not.

The thought of it grosses me out.

Technically, it is cannibalism, because it's human tissue. The next steps, of course, will be takeaways and franchising, followed by chat shows about the effect on relationships. I've been thinking of moving to another species...

Animals eat the placenta because it actually stimulates the mammary gland to produce the first milk, which is very important to the young animal. The same thing was done by humans for the same effect though it isn't done now. Technically, it is only cannibalism if you are eating the placenta of another female, if it is your own than it is yours to do what you want with!

To my mind, it is just a small step from eating placenta to out and out cannibalism and there are other ways to get nutrition or the health benefits than engaging in such a disgusting practice. I have never heard of this and the idea of a woman giving birth in her bathtub and eating her placenta can only come from those who believe that we are just a higher form of animal rather than those created in God's own image.

not me... will definitely not eat something alike...

I first read about people cooking and eating the placenta a few years ago on a blog , probably 6 years ago when I was last pregnant... gross gross gross. I do not think it is cannibalism, however, as it is not a human body, but rather a product of it - and by the time the child is born it is a waste product - it therefore is no more cannibalism than eating feces would be. And just about as disgusting.