Zi He Che

A CDC field investigation of a term infant who developed late-onset group B streptococcal bacteraemia five days after finishing treatment for early-onset GBS disease. The mother's 37-week GBS screen had been negative, but she began taking capsules of her own dehydrated placenta after delivery; GBS cultured from those capsules was indistinguishable by whole-genome sequencing from both of the infant's blood isolates. CDC concluded that placenta capsule ingestion should be avoided because the encapsulation process does not reliably eliminate infectious pathogens.

Twenty-three women were randomised to capsules of their own steamed, dehydrated placenta or to a beef placebo, with haemoglobin, ferritin and transferrin measured at four points from 36 weeks' gestation to three weeks postpartum. No significant difference appeared on any iron measure (haemoglobin p = 0.603, ferritin p = 0.852, transferrin p = 0.936). Placenta capsules did contain more iron than the placebo (0.664 vs 0.093 mg/g) but supplied only about 24% of the lactating RDA at maximum study intake, which the authors flag as inadequate for a woman relying on it to correct deficiency.

A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot in 27 women assessing mood, maternal bonding and fatigue on validated scales at four timepoints. No significant main effects were found for any of the three outcomes; scattered time-point differences suggesting slightly lower depressive symptoms and fatigue in the placenta group were not statistically interpretable. The authors conclude the finding matters most for women choosing placenta as a non-pharmacological alternative for postpartum depression.

The hormonal arm of the same 27-woman randomised placebo-controlled pilot, using LC-MS/MS on saliva and on the capsules themselves. There were no between-group differences in salivary hormone concentrations after supplementation that did not already exist before it, but all 15 hormones detected in the capsules showed a significant dose-response relationship with the corresponding salivary measure in the placenta group only. Hormones in the drug are therefore absorbed to a small, real, but sub-threshold degree.

The lactation arm of the placebo-controlled placenta capsule trial. Neither maternal plasma prolactin nor neonatal weight gain differed between women taking their own processed placenta and those taking placebo, contradicting the common claim that the drug supports milk supply.

A records-based cohort of 6038 US community births, propensity-matched on more than 90 variables including prior mental health history, comparing Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale scores in 1876 placenta consumers against 1876 matched non-consumers. Placenta consumption was associated with a 15-20% higher risk of screening positive for postpartum depression depending on the EPDS cutoff, robust across sensitivity analyses. The authors attribute this most plausibly to reverse causality rather than harm, but the data give no support at all to the prophylactic claim.

A controlled counterweight to the CDC case report. Placentas from 24 mothers were processed and cultured: 2 of 13 placentas from GBS-positive mothers grew GBS on the surface, but all 24 processed samples were GBS-free. In a companion experiment, six placentas deliberately inoculated with high-titre GBS and E. coli showed significant reductions in colony-forming units after heat processing. The authors conclude that properly heat-processed placenta is an unlikely source of clinical infection, which bounds but does not eliminate the risk, since heat processing is unstandardised and the Oregon capsules were themselves culture-positive.

ICP-MS analysis of 28 placentas processed for encapsulation. Arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, rubidium, selenium, strontium, uranium and zinc were all detectable. At the recommended 3300 mg daily intake the drug supplies about 24% of the lactating RDA for iron, 7.1% for selenium, 1.5% for zinc and 1.4% for copper, while the toxic elements sit well below toxicity thresholds. The drug is thus a modest micronutrient source and a minimal heavy-metal exposure.

An authentication study combining species-specific COI-gene PCR against human, cow, deer and sheep, hCG pregnancy test strips, progesterone competitive ELISA and iodine starch testing. Of ten commercial Placenta Hominis samples, five were genuine, four were pure starch and one was a starch-placenta mixture; no cow, deer or sheep DNA was detected in this set. It documents both a workable identity test and the scale of adulteration in the supply chain.

LC-MS/MS assay of 17 free steroid hormones and melatonin across 28 placentas processed by steaming and dehydration. Sixteen of the seventeen were detectable after processing, some at concentrations the authors judged capable of physiological effect. This is the analytical basis for treating the dried drug as a real if unstandardised hormone exposure.