Abstract

Afterbirth ingestion by nonhuman mammalian mothers has a number of benefits: (1) increasing the interaction between the mother and infant; (2) potentiating pregnancy-mediated analgesia in the delivering mother; (3) potentiating maternal brain opioid circuits that facilitate the onset of caretaking behavior; and (4) suppressing postpartum pseudopregnancy. Childbirth is fraught with additional problems for which there are no practical nonhuman animal models: postpartum depression, failure to bond, hostility toward infants. Ingested afterbirth may contain components that ameliorate these problems, but the issue has not been tested empirically. The results of such studies, if positive, will be medically relevant. If negative, speculations and recommendations will persist, as it is not possible to prove the negative. A more challenging anthropological question is "why don't humans engage in placentophagia as a biological imperative?" Is it possible that there is more adaptive advantage in not doing so?

Links

Publisher Full Text

Authors

Kristal MB, DiPirro JM, Thompson AC

Institution

Behavioral Neuroscience Program, Department of Psychology, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4110, USA. kristal@buffalo.edu

Source

Ecology of food and nutrition 51:3 2012 pg 177-97

MeSH

Amniotic Fluid
Analgesia
Animals
Behavior, Animal
Feeding Behavior
Female
Humans
Mammals
Maternal Behavior
Mother-Child Relations
Placenta
Postpartum Period
Pregnancy
Species Specificity

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article

Language

eng

PubMed ID

22632059