You may believe it is a very gross thing to do, women eating their own placenta, there is, but the practice wasn’t invented yesterday. Moreover, women in China also have a recipe for cooking their placenta, and if this didn’t make you run outside, then you’re good to go, because on a less gross note, modern medicine and technology found a lot of important uses for this particular part of a woman’s body. Stem cell harvest, placenta freezing, placenta – based processed supplements, they all belong to this modern world where we are still fighting terminal diseases and don’t know how to handle transplant rejections or organ donor incompatibility. But, on the bright side, we have now the power to 3D print organs and save lives and, who knows, we may be the witnesses of curing cancer and AIDS during our lifetimes and put an end to misery and suffering. And all these may be intimately linked to the newborns’ placenta.
…And then, there comes the art, ladies and gentlemen. Women around the world took a step forward and instead of eating their placentas, like any other responsible mother would, or donate it to science, they started creating works of art. And for things to get even weirder, some smart people figured out that breast milk is a solid ingredient for creating art too. You may think breast milk is liquid, but wait for it… So today we will talk about human placenta and breast milk art. Just so you know what to do as fresh mothers. By the looks of it, fathers have nothing to do with this, but it’s best to be updated.
Human Placenta Art
French branch of Slate Magazine start their debate on the subject of “what women do with their placenta” with a very objective heading: Some peoples’ imagination has no limits. Indeed it doesn’t. So these guys found out that American mothers harvest their fresh placentas and use them to make posters, given the fact that it can look like some sort of a tree, together with the umbilical cord. It’s not the actual placenta, mind you, but the traces of the placenta imprinted on paper after pressed carefully against it. The painting can be of course put on the wall to celebrate the birth of the newborn and remind the parents how lucky they are.
But in the world of human placenta and breast milk art, things don’t stop at DIY projects, although there are video tutorials available for women to make their own placenta posters. There are companies who will do it for you. Slate contributor describes Portland as a neo – hippie city by excellence before presenting us with Tree of Life Placenta Services, a company that turns your placenta into a post – modern painting. Isn’t that sweet?
Breast milk art
If you’re thinking something like ice sculptures (as milk seems to be liquid compared to the placenta which is solid), we are talking about breast milk jewelry. And this is old news people. This looks like an old good fashioned British – French cooperation, as somewhere in 2008 some French scientists discovered the recipe which allows mothers with too much breast milk and too much free time imagination to solidify their breast milk and turn it into jewelry, while The Telegraph described the whole process in detail. You can buy breast milk jewelry, you can make your own earrings and bracelets and necklaces, just to keep close (and forever) the fresh mommy memories.
While some people create all sort of artistic works out of the strangest of materials, and don’t get us wrong, we love art, human placenta and breast milk art seem to be only for the connoisseurs and people willing to make some serious statements. Best of luck with that!
Photo credits: Slate.fr, Telegraph.co.uk