The Placenta Encapsulation Process - The Traditional Chinese Medicine Method

Once I have the placenta, I will ensure that it stays cold and stored at proper temperatures for food safety.

The first step is to prepare the work area by thoroughly scrubbing, disinfecting, and covering to ensure a sanitary space. During the entire preparation of your placenta, I wear gloves and other PPE to ensure that both the placenta is free from any possible contaminants or bacteria as well as for my own safety. Gloves are changed whenever needed to ensure sanitary practice.

The Traditional Chinese Medicine method or TCM method, is the way in which I was trained to prepare placentas for encapsulation. Let's get into what this means, the why, and how.

The Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) method is a preparation method developed by Raven Lang, a midwife and TCM practitioner - she used her knowledge of the TCM principles and the needs of the postpartum body.

With this method, the placenta is washed and prepared for steaming. The placenta is gently steamed because in the theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine, after birth an open, empty space is left behind within the mother's womb space. This is very yin, or cold.

Steaming the placenta creates a warm energy, or yang. In this method, warming ingredients such as cayenne pepper, ginger, lemon, and garlic are also added into the steaming process to increase the heat or yang within the prepared placenta.

The placenta steams for a specific length of time until the appropriate temperature is reached, and then allowed to cool. Once cooled, it is sliced and set to be dehydrated. This concludes the work for day 1 of the process; all disposables are carefully disposed of and equipment, tools, surfaces, etc. are cleaned, disinfected and sanitized.

On Day 2 of the encapsulation process, the dried placenta is powdered, put into capsules, and packaged for delivery to the client.

Once capsules are completed and jarred, and any add-on products finished the next step is the cleaning process. This is when again, I will dispose of all that is disposable; wash all tools, equipment, and surfaces; then disinfect and sanitize as per OSHA guidelines.

The final result of this method of preparation brings nourishing warmth and tonifying effects on the postpartum body, creating a balance of yin and yang energies within the mother to support her recovery during the coming weeks.

Dosage information will be provided with your capsules.