Latest / Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD / It's The Placenta Episode!

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It's The Placenta Episode! · Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: This is parent data. I'm Emily Oster.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Pop quiz.
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: What is the only organ that you grow and then discard,
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: that magically bosses around all of your hormones and your
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: entire body, that changes your heart rate and is actually
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: made up of someone else's cells.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: In addition to yours answer, it's the placenta.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Less obvious to some of us is how completely awesome
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: and amazing it is. A lot of us totally forget
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: that we even had a placenta or delivered it, because
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: when the placenta comes out, you're sitting with the little
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: baby on your chest, and it's easy, relatively speaking, to
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: push out the placenta. Also, it looks really gross, but
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: that last little push when you're holding your baby says
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: goodbye to a truly amazing organ, to a couch cushion,
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: your baby's first bodyguard, it's waterbed, it's your baby's first friend.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: And today we're going to finally give.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: The placenta it's due.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: I invited doctor Gillian Goddard back for a mini episode
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: to talk all about the placenta.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: And how amazing it is and how much we love it.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: We're going to follow its journey through conception to pregnancy
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: and beyond, and we're going to ask the.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Important questions like whether you should eat it.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So the placenta, it's the best.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Enjoy doctor Jillian Goddard, thank you for coming back to
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Parent Data to talk about science with us.
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: Oh, I'm so excited. I always like to talk with you.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: I always like to talk with you too, And today
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: we're talking about the world's greatest organ, the placenta, and
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: we can discuss whether you think it's the greatest organ.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: But I'm not going to open with that question.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Let's set the stage just explaining what is the placenta.
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: The placenta is an organ. It does many different things,
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: but I think at the most basic level allows communication
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: between the fetus and the mother so that the fetus
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: can get the things that it needs to grow and
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: develop appropriately.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: So before you get pregnant, you do not have a
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: placenta that is correct. Correct, So you get pregnant, and
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: then let's just like talk about how the placenta arrives.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: So you get pregnant, and then there's a well, let's start.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: The sperm fertilizes the egg, it travels down the fallopian tube,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: it gets into the uterus, it implants and then say
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: more right.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: So when it implants in the side of the.
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: Uterus, there are multiple cells at this point in the embryo,
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: and the very earliest things that happen are some differentiation
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: of some different types or groups of cells in that
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: little clump of cells that is a very very early pregnancy,
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: and one set of those groups of cells actually grows
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: into the placenta and it actually tells the uterine lining
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: to change so that the uterine lining interfaces with the
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: cells that grow into the placenta. So if you've ever
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: had something called choreonic villas sampling, which is one of
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: the tests that we do for genetic testing, they're actually
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: testing the villi, which are the little pieces of baby
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: DNA that are interfacing with the lining of the uterus
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: to communicate.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: With one another.
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: So in some ways, the placenta is the only organ that's.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: Kind of made up of two people together.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: I just love So it's made up of two people
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: in the sense that like it's the baby's cells, but
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: then it's interfacing with your.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: Cells to like create the plain exactly.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: So if you if you harvested the placenta and you
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: tested it, it would be like some kind of mosaic
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: between you and the baby kind of.
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: I mean, there's specific structures that would be cells from
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: the baby and then specific structures that would be sells
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: from you. But if you didn't know, if you just
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: took like a like a core through the placenta, you
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: would pass through baby and mom in all the different
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: cells that you collected.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: And the way the placental works is there's like it's
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: like attached to the wall of the uterus, and then
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: it like it's like it goes through.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: It's like between the wall of the uterus and the baby.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: It's it, yes, So it sits. It's almost like a
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: little cushion that sits.
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: You can't nobody's gonna be able to see me making
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: all these hands just.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: A green bag care.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: It's like a couch cushion.
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: It sits on one side of your uterus, between the
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: wall of the uterus and the baby. But it's physically
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: attached to the wall of the uterus.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: And why do we need the placenta. Why not just
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: connect directly to the baby, which seems more efficient.
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: So the placenta does more than connect mom and baby.
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: It it is a barrier that can keep some things
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: from mom away from baby.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: So some types of.
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: Things that mom might experience, some types of illnesses and
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: things can't cross the placenta, and so in that way
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: it's protective for the baby. But the placenta does more
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: than just interface with mom in a physical way.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: It is it's an endocrine organ It makes.
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: All kinds of hormones that direct the mom's body to
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: do things that support the growth of a healthy fetus.
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: Like what so when we talk about pregnancy physiology, everything
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: changes by forty percent. So the plus tells you to
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: make forty percent more blood cells, It tells your kidneys
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: to filter forty percent more. It tells your heart to
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: push out forty percent more blood with every heartbeat. It
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: tells your body to make forty percent more thyroide hormone,
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: and forty percent more cortisol, and all of.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: These things actually allow.
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: The nutrients that the baby needs to get to the
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: baby because it changes things like circulation and how much
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: blood you have and how much carrying capacity your blood has.
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: It also changes how women's bodies process sugar. Babies need
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: sugar to grow, so it creates a situation in which
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: more sugar is available for baby to grow than would
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: be just in the mom's usual bloodstream.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: So I am imagining this sort of like the baby
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: has grown this extra organ which bosses mom's body to
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: do things that the baby needs. Is it responsive in
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: that sense? Like is there a sense in which if
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: the baby needs more, it like uses the placenta to
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: like get more from mom.
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: It's less responsive than that. It's more that it sets
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: up this entire ecosystem almost inside of mom's body that
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: supports baby. But it tends to make more and more
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: and more of things and not necessarily to turn things
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: up and down. So at the beginning of pregnancy, the
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: placenta is smaller, it's making fewer hormones, and over the
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: course of pregnancy it makes more and more and more
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: hormones as the baby gets bigger and needs more nutrients
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: to continue to grow and develop.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: I have an evolutionary question, which is when did the
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: placenta start?
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: So the plus centa is present.
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: In all mammals, and there are some pluscental like stretchers
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: in the eggs of animals that do not have a placenta,
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: but really the placenta developed with mammalion differentiations.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: We have any idea why like, why is this an
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: efficient way to do this?
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: I don't know that we know exactly why. I mean,
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: some of this is that.
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: Mammals are much more complex, and so they need more
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: nutrients in order to grow and develop during pregnancy because
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: you're developing a much more complex creature with a more
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: complex brain and more complex types of physiology.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: Mammals are warm blooded. There's all kinds of.
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: You know, maintaining body temperature that have to develop as
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: part of being a healthy mammal to function in the world.
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: And so this allows the system allows you to grow
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: a more complex thing.
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: Animals in person, yes, exactly any.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Type of animal.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: Okay, So let's talk about what can go right or
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: wrong with the placenta. And let me frame the question
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: in a way that I think many people would ask,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: which is like, what can I do to.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Get the best placenta?
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: Like, what kind of things could I do to make
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: my placenta really like a nice cushion, you know, with
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: like a good quality upholstery stain resistant?
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: What's it going to take?
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: I mean, the biggest thing that you need to grow
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: a placenta is a healthy embryo, which you only have
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: so much control over and Remember, this isn't something like,
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: you know, so I want to give my baby a
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: super high IQ. We're talking about just creating quite frankly,
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: a temporary organ. You need a healthy embryo, and you
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: need lots.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: And lots of energy.
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: And that is why the beginning of pregnancy can make
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: people feel really, really tired, because it requires a lot
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: from the mother's body to undergo this big physiologic change
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: to support baby. And so the biggest thing you can
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: do is listen to that and rest as much as
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: you can rest.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: It's not easy, but it's not easy.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: So then let's talk a little more serious about sort
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: of what can go wrong with the placenta, you know,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: and we're going to talk about the end of pregnancy,
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: but sort of are there things that can go wrong
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: with the organ in the middle of pregnancy that might
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: be an issue.
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, the biggest things that can go wrong
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: or in pregnancy with the plus centa are related to
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: how the placenta is attached to the side of.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: The uterine wall.
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: So if something happens to the placenta so that the
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: plus centa is not adequately attached, that can cause problems.
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: So one of the really common things that you see
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: in early pregnancy is people will get something called a
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: subcoreonic hemorrhage, which is like a little area where the
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: plus centa and in a lot of cases it's really small.
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: You get a little bit of a detachment between the
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: placenta and the wall of the uterus, and it can
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: get a little bit of blood in it from mom's circulation.
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: If that became extreme then and you don't have enough
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: of the placenta attached, then that can cause a problem.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: But attachment issues are sort of.
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: The biggest issues in early pregnant, that's saying.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: And then as we get later in pregnancy, and people
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: used to have the understanding that like the placenta was
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: like a blocker.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think over the.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Course of human history, there's been a variety of understanding.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: Some that the placenta let's everything through. Sometimes it is
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: like a brick wall, but let's nothing through. Neither of
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: those is is correct. It is neither a sieve nor
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: a wa correct.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: Correct correct, It's something in between.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: So some even when we talk about things like like
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: medications or some kinds of medications that will that will
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: pass through some kinds of illnesses that can pass through
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: some kinds of illnesses and medications. Yes, okay, So during
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: this sort of middle period of pregnancy, the placenta is
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: basically put like telling mom what to do, filtering some
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: things out and letting other things through, providing nutrients to
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: the baby. Oh here's a question I have that people
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: ask if I eat like kimchi. Yeah, does the placenta
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: pass the taste to my baby?
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: No? It does not.
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: So basically, by the time baby sees what you're eating,
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: the food that you're eating has been completely broken down
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: and metabolized into its component parts of fat, carbohydrate, and protein,
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: and so all baby is seeing as like individual glucose
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: molecules and individual free fatty acids and individual protein peat
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: like amino acids to build proteins. It's not like breastfeeding
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: where they're getting some of the intact like aromatic comp
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: like chemicals that I mean. I mean aromatic sort of
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: in the chemical sense, but it also is in the
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: actual sense that gives food its taste and smell. They're
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: just getting the totally broken down products through your bloodstream
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: and the macro yeah macro's not blue yeah, and vitamins.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: So sometimes people get told they have either an anterior
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: or posterior placenta.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: What does that mean it.
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: It literally just refers to the location on the wall
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: of the uterus where the placenta has grown. So when
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: that little embryo, that little clump of cells, comes floating
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: into your uterus from the fallopian tube, it implants at
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: some place on the wall.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Of the uterus, ideally sort of near the top of
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: the uterus, which.
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: Is called the fundus, but it can be more to
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: the front or more to the back, it can be
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: a little lower down.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: It can really.
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: Implant anywhere and wherever it implants, that is where the
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: placenta is going to start to grow.
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: Now, our uterus is about the size of a.
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: Closed fist, and maybe even an even a little smaller,
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: and so over the course of forty weeks, your uterus
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: is gonna grow and change quite substantially to.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: Accommodate you know, a full term baby.
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: And so over time your uterus will move around, not detaching,
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: but just as the uterus grows, where it implanted will
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: change its location a little bit on the wall of
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: the uterus. But the reason I mean, I think the
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: biggest reason that people even talk about this is because
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: it does affect how mom experiences fetal movement. So if
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: you have an anterior plasenta, it's that you think about.
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: If you think about it as a couch cushion, right,
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: then you have a couch cushion between your abdominal wall
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: where you're sensing the fetal movement.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: And the baby.
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: And so if a teeny tiny little fetus is, you know,
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: moving around, that movement is going to be buffeted by
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: by the placenta and you won't feel it as much
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: as opposed to if your placentile it was on the
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: back wall of the uterus. I think a lot of
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: our perception of the of baby moving is how we
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: feel it on our like abdominal wall.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: So, and the other thing to say about this positioning
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: is people placenta previa is a reasonably common diagnosis and
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: occurs when the placenta is basically low positions low in
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: the uterus and is over the cervix. Yes, and that
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: can be completely over partially over and and what you
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: said about the growth of the uterus is important to
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: that because that is often diagnosed early in pregnancy and
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: then as the uterus grows, Basically a placenta moves, moves
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: out of the way, and so actually a very large share,
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: like ninety percent of diagnosed previas do result.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: Resolve on their own with no intervention whatsoever.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: So so I always find that I think that's a
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: very reassuring thing for people because this is something we
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: didn't used to look for very much. Now is very
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: commonly look for early and pregnancy. Huge share of people
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: are diagnosed, and you just want to be like, hey,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: like this is something to watch because of course, if
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: it's still there at delivery, you don't want to have
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: a vaginal birth because the placenta will be in the
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: way and that puts you at risk for hemorrhage.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: But the chance that it resolves is really.
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: Really really really high.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, So I want to ask one question about
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: the umbilical cord, which is if you only have two vessels,
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: what does that mean? Why are there multiple vessels and
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: does it matter?
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So the umbilical cord, like the default is three vessels,
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: it's one artery in two veins, and so sometimes people
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: will The venous system in the human body, and I'm
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: sure in other animals as well, is incredibly variable. So
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: there are certain veins people will have, but they'll also there.
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: Where exactly they are and how exactly they are structured
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: will very widely from one person to the next. The
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: arterial system, which is the system that delivers blood from
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: the heart to various parts of the body, that system
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: is like very very set.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: We don't see a lot.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: Of variability in arteries, including in the umbilical artery, but
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: the venus system is very variable from one person to
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: the next, and so some people will only have one
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: vein and it doesn't have much in the way of
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: impact on anything, which is why it's like blue eyes
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: are brown, right, Okay.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: So then we fast forward to the end of pregnancy,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: and the end of pregnancy is when I think we
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: have a lot of placental discussion. And the first thing
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: that comes up often is the question of whether your
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: placenta wears out effectively, like whether some of you know
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: some of the push, for example, to not let people
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: go past forty one or forty two weeks. So pregnancy
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: is a feeling like this placenta is a temporary organ
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: and it only has so much time, and if it
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: wears out, that can be that can be dangerous. So
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: how much do we know about that whether that happens
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: that process, et cetera.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: We're really just starting to understand exactly what's going on
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: in that process. There are some relatively simple hormones called
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: peptide hormones that impact the way that the mother's vasculature
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: is connected to the placenta, and we think that these.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: Hormones are important.
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: And may play a role in some of the complications
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: that can happen in the third trimester. And we and
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: we're starting to think that maybe these hormones have an
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: impact on triggering things like labor and on sort of
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: what what we often talk about is like placental sufficiency
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: or insufficiency, sort of how how much capacity the placenta
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: has to do its job. And we actually think it's
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: it may be related to some of these hormones that
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: affect the blood flow on the mother's side to the placenta.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: If you looked at a placenta that was like thirty
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: eight weeks versus forty two weeks at delivery, would it
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: look different?
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: No?
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: No, no, okay, it's not like looking old and decrepity.
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: No, it's not like it shrivels up and turns gray
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: or anything, not like those of us not like the
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: actual forties.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Okay, So at the end of pregnancy do you go
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: into labor. Let's imagine you have a.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Vaginal bart, you deliver the baby, and then the.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: Third stage of labor is the delivery of the placenta,
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: and some people find that surprising. It's typically like one
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: contraction and the placenta sort of comes out, yes, ideally
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: all in all, in one piece. So one thing that
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: can happen is the placenta can get stuck, yes, and
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: not come out.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Why is that of concern.
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: Because if there's pieces of the placenta stuck, or if
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: the whole placenta is stuck, it doesn't allow the blood
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: vessels on the mother's side to clamp down and stop
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: delivering blood, and so it allows for really significant hemorrhage
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: on the mother side, which can be of course, quite dangerous.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: All right, So, assuming that your placenta is delivered at
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: the end of the third stage of labor, it's there,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: it's in it.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: They put it in like one of those you know, bedpands.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: And then we're going to get the most important question
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: in this interview, which is should I eat it?
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: I don't think that there are any proven benefits of
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: eating your placenta.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: I just want to say stories give me just start
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: by saying like, you shouldn't just eat it, Like I'm
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: just gonna say you shouldn't just eat it wrong, like,
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: don't just start eating it. Even though some animals, some
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: animals do eat their placentas.
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: Raw, yes, after birth, but yes, people should not.
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: Do People should not do that. People should not do that. No,
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: vaginas are not sterile, you, They're.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: All kinds of other stuff.
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, happen, Okay, there's happen.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: But sometimes people will take somebody, will give somebody your
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: placenta and have them turn it into pills.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: So what's the evidence on those.
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: There's no proven benefit to that whatsoever. I think some
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: of the theories is that it might help with like
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: like your recovery after pregnancy because there's a little bit
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: of iron.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: In the placenta.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: But it's literally there's ninety milligrams of iron in your
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: placenta at the end of pregnancy. That's like two days
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: worth of iron supplements that are available over the counter.
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: It's not Also, they sell.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Iron supplements in Amazon. You can just get a whole
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: bottle of them.
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: It's like you don't exactly, so, like there's no actual
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: proven benefits to aiding encapsulated placenta or.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: Consuming it in any other way.
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: And to my knowledge, and I'm not an anthropologist, this
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: is not something that humans have done with any sort
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: of regularity.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can see.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: I mean it does seem like it would be it
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: would be hard to see how you come up with that. Yeah,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: you know, like after this experience, like I would not
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: have thought the first thing you would do is be, like,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: you know, throw that on a stick and put it
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: over the fire.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Well, just get a snack.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: No, it's not very appealing.
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: I don't know if you've looked at a placenta before,
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: but you.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Should look at It's very interesting.
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: It's a fascinating thing to look at it.
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: It is very interesting. It's two sided. You can tell
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: which side was which.
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: But I can't say that it looks particularly appetizing now.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: But there have been some suggestions of other interesting things
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: we could do with it. So did you read the
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: New York Times article about the face the placenta face?
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, fixing? Yeah, can you say more about that?
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: I can't say that there's any data that actually supports it.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: I think the thinking is that it is.
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: A blood rich organ that has some specific types of
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: stem cells that might be helpful, but I don't think
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: there's any real data to support using it in that way.
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: The best ata we have for what to do with
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: placenta is after the baby is born, is actually just
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: to delay clamping the cord so that the blood from
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: the placenta goes back to the baby, and then sort
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: of the benefits of the placenta are probably largely gone
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: at that point, because then you've given the baby as
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: much of the blood back and moved on.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Do you think that we should study I mean, you're
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: an under chronologist. It seems like this is like an
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: extreme interesting organ that like grows by itself and is
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: full of interesting hormones and bosses the hormonal system. I mean,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: I would have thought this would be like catnip.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: It doesn't need boss the hormonal system. It bosses the
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: entire body around. It changes everything about your physiology. It
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: changes how like food moves through your gut. It affects
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: every one of your organ systems.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: And which is why I love it so much.
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: And it doesn't unlike many glands it is it is
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: an endocrine gland. Unlike many glands, it makes like this
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: whole like menu of hormones. It doesn't just make one
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: hormone or two hormones. It makes like eight or ten hormones,
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: and those are just the ones that we understand. And
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: it does that in a really organized and sort of
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: specific way that you know, we we really don't even
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: completely understand how it does what it does, and I
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: would love to know.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: More about it.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the placenta is one of the things. I don't
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: know why there's so many things in science like this
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: where I'm just like, wow, evolution must be incredibly neat, Yeah,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: because like this is such an like it's it seems
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: like it would be so hard to come to, you know,
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: like what's the what's the thing that for the first
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: placented thing? And then like we had to get all
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: of this way to this incredibly complicated organ and through mutations.
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: I don't know, I know, to think about like reverse
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: engineering a placenta and like why you would make those decisions.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: And what are the other decisions you could have made
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: if we didn't have a placenta, Like what would be
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: the other you know.
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: It's fascinating, It's absolutely fascinating. And the other thing that
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: I think is amazing that I always am like that
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: is so it has no nerves the placenta, which I
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: suppose makes sense, it would be I guess a little weird,
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: but oh. One of the big ways that our bodies communicate,
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: that our cell communicate with one another is through innervation,
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: and the placenta doesn't have that. So the it's communicating
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: solely through hormones and no other and through no other method.
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: And so to come up with that is just I mean,
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: I don't think we would ever have come up with
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: that on our own if we had to like design
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: something for this purpose.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: No exactly.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: It's like you to be like, Okay, we're gonna put
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: the baby in here, and then we're gonna put this cushion.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know. That seems like a lot of work.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: You have to make the cushion every.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: Time, every time, every time.
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: Anyway, and if you have in most cases there's exceptions
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: to this, but if you.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: Have twins, you have to grow.
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: Two placentas, then you're really tired, well until you actually
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: have the twins and then.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, Jillian, I was delighted to be here
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: with you to discuss the best organ and I learned
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: so much, so thanks, thank you.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: It's my pleasure. It's my favorite organ too.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: Next time we can come back and talk about our
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: second favorite organ.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know what that is, but.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, I guess the vagina, presumably another female reproductive organ.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: But stay tuned.
• 28:32
  Speaker 6: Listen to fault to the floor, the AJ opened.
• 28:46
  Speaker 7: Right, the confusion, sense the factor close, the oha.
• 29:06
  Speaker 8: Feel coming back, a get lego, chasing the horses fallen
• 29:18
  Speaker 8: from the sister be
• 29:22
  Speaker 7: Aga feeling