Woman gets court order to eat her Placenta after Child Birth

A woman in Mississippi wants to eat her placenta after giving birth, and to ensure she succeeds she went to a court to get an order. Jordan Thiering mentioned it to her doctor in March.
This is as many women in the U.S. have begun eating their own placentas as a way to 'increase energy and milk production'. However, there is no scientific evidence eating a placenta has any health benefits.

After a friend gave her the idea to put her placenta into a smoothie and after doing her own research, Thiering made the decision to go ahead with the idea. That's when she found out she'd have to go to court if she wanted access to her own placenta.


'I grew my baby, I grew my placenta. There should be no one that can tell me what I can or can't do with it,' she told USA TODAY.


When she called she was told she'd need a court order to obtain her placenta after birth. 'I'm thinking, "What? For my own body part? Why do I need a court order?",' she said. The Mississippi Department of Health regulated that Thiering is a 'third party' to her placenta, USA TODAY reported.

'If I give birth to my baby and then I give birth to my placenta, do you own my baby, too? Do I have a third party to my own child? Well, of course not. So then why am I the third party to my own body part? It just doesn't seem to make sense,' she said.


One doctor defined the placenta as medical waste.


'No hospital or other facility may release non-infectious medical waste (including placental tissue) without there first having been obtained by a court order, or other judicial mandate, which will assure proper disposal by the release,' according to a hospital memo obtained by the Clarion-Ledger.

So at 33 weeks pregnant, with the help of a lawyer, Thiering went to Rankin County Chancery Court to petition for the right to her placenta.


On May 17, Judge John McLaurin agreed and gave her the right to bring home the placenta.


'It was pretty simple but totally unnecessary in my opinion to need any of that. I don't think it's right for someone who has no experience to dictate what a woman can do with her body, he's not a woman. He shouldn't have a right to dictate what I can do with my body,' Thiering said.


Source: USA TODAY