Placentophagy
act of mammals eating the placenta of their young after childbirth
Placentophagy, also known as placentophagia, is the act of consuming part or all of the afterbirth following parturition in mammals. Parturition involves the delivery of the neonate, as well as the placenta and fetal membranes. The placenta is a critical organ that develops in the maternal uterus during pregnancy to support the fetus. It connects to the fetus via the umbilical cord in order to allow nutrient transport, waste excretion and gas exchange between mother and fetus. The morphological features of the placenta differ among species, but the function is universal.
The behaviour is characteristic to the mother of the majority of placental mammals. Significant documentation has been provided on placentophagy in a range of animals.
Anomalies generally include humans and aquatic species, as well as camels. However, the concept is becoming more popular among women in the West, despite its controversial overtone.
Theories as to why mammals engage in placentophagy are related to the many proposed benefits of placental consumption.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Placentophagy” as act of mammals eating the placenta of their young after childbirth. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q795393. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Placentophagy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.