Eating Placenta: How is This a Thing?

In recent years, celebrities like Kim Kardashian have started spruiking the unusual postnatal health trend of eating their own placenta. On Instagram accounts followed by billions of people, you’ll find pictures of placenta smoothies or dried placenta capsules. This fad is not backed by any clinical evidence, in fact, eating a placenta (which is designed to protect a foetus from harmful elements and infections) could actually be quite dangerous for the mother and their new baby’s health.

Dr Nick Fuller is a Research Lead from the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney, and the author of Interval Weight Loss. He joined Tess for a chat about the issue of social media health trends and the importance of sourcing health advice from reputable sources backed by peer-reviewed research.