Sister, Do Not Eat Your Flesh and Blood

Why Christian Mothers Should not eat their Placenta:

Content Warning: This article contains graphic imagery and descriptions related to placentas, blood, and discussions of cannibalism as addressed in scripture. Reader discretion is advised.

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Recently, I’ve noticed a growing trend among women in the Christian community—consuming their placenta or afterbirth as a means to aid postpartum recovery. Influencers, midwives, and other voices are constantly sharing the many benefits of this practice, and many Christians are jumping on the bandwagon. 

However, knowledge of the Biblical commandment to abstain from blood as well as the broader Biblical implications of consuming human flesh would probably prevent many Christians from joining in on this practice if they were aware of it. 

In this blog, we’ll explore why, from a Biblical perspective, eating the placenta is a practice that we should abstain from as women of God. 

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What is the Placenta and What is it Made of?

Before turning to scripture, let’s clarify what the placenta is.

The placenta is a unique organ formed from both the mother’s uterine lining and the developing embryo, which carries DNA from the mother, father, and baby. Interestingly, the father’s genes dominate in forming the placenta, meaning most of its DNA originates from him.

Why is this significant? If you choose to eat your placenta, you’re consuming human flesh composed of DNA from yourself, your husband, and your baby—Some would call this cannibalism at its finest. 

Additionally, the placenta contains a substantial amount of blood. Its primary function during pregnancy is to transfer blood rich in oxygen and nutrients to the baby while removing waste products. This process involves a continuous exchange: oxygenated blood and nutrients flow from the mother to the baby, while deoxygenated blood carrying waste (like carbon dioxide and toxins) returns to the placenta for filtration.

So, when eating the placenta, one consumes not only human tissue from three individuals but also predominately blood. The placenta is therefore human Flesh and blood. Two things that women of God should not be eating.

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Why Shouldn’t Christians Eat their Placenta?

1. Christians are Commanded not to Eat Blood:

Simply put, the Bible explicitly instructs us not to consume blood, and the placenta is a sack of human tissue literally made up of hundreds of vessels rich in blood. 

The purported nutritional benefits of eating placenta come from the leftover blood in the placental tissue along with the proteins in that make up the tissue itself. So whether you choose to eat your placenta raw in smoothies like many women often do, or dehydrate the placenta until the tissue and dried blood can be ground into a powder and encapsulated, you are still consuming blood.

God has given the commandment to abstain from blood several times throughout scripture from the Old Testament to the New Testament. He told Noah and his children not to eat blood,  He told the Israelites through Moses not to eat any manner of blood (over 7 times) and then we see the Holy Spirit inspired  Paul to tell the Gentiles not to eat blood even after Christ's death. 

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This is a commandment that has never changed. 

Verses that State Christians Can Not Eat Blood:

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Noah and his children commanded not to eat blood:

Genesis 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

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Israelites were commanded not to eat blood:

Leviticus 3:17 “This shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.

Leviticus 17:26-27: [26] Moreover, ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. 

[27 ]Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.

Leviticus 17:10-14[10] And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people.

[12] Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood.

[13] And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust.

[14] For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off

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Christians commanded not to eat blood even under the New Testament:

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Acts 15:20: But that we write unto them that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.

(This was in reference to gentiles at that time who recently came to know Christ.)

Clearly, the practice of eating blood continues to be forbidden by God, both before Christ came in the flesh and after His death and resurrection. Throughout scripture, God consistently reveals His heart on this matter. God says that the blood is the life of a being, and He makes it clear that we are not to consume flesh with the life still in it. This is why even with animals who were killed for food, all the blood had to be drained and the meat completely cooked before consumption. Personally, I believe there may be an even deeper spiritual mystery surrounding blood and why God is so adamant we avoid it, but as his children who desire to honor him, the commandments and explanations we are given should be more than enough to be obedient. 

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Knowing God’s heart on the matter, how do you think He would feel watching you intentionally eat an organ filled with not just your blood but the blood of your baby?

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2. Eating Human Flesh Including Afterbirth was a Punishment for Sin in the Bible:

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Cannibalism in the Bible:

 In addition to explicitly commanding us not to eat blood, the Bible gives a clear impression that consuming human flesh is utterly abominable and absurd. Not only has God carefully outlined what is permissible to eat throughout scripture, to which we can see that at no point did he permit human flesh to be on the menu, but we also see that the only time consumption of human flesh was mentioned, was in reference to curses and judgement for sin. 

We see this in Deuteronomy 28 where God is detailing the blessings he would give his children if they obeyed his commandments and the curses that would ensue if they did not. Among the severe curses described, one stands out: the horrifying judgment of being driven to eat human flesh, and not just any human flesh, particularly being driven to eat the flesh and blood of ones own womb.

This absurd act would be a consequence of God allowing Israel’s enemies to utterly devastate them as a judgment—stripping them of food, hope, freedom, and eventually their sanity due to the severity that they would subject them to. We see in scripture that as the punishments intensify, even the most compassionate individuals are driven to literal madness and desperation that drives them to eventually do unthinkable acts such as consuming their own afterbirths (placentas) and their own live children.

Such scenes emphasize the depths of depravity that result when God’s people turn away from Him and His law to embrace wickedness. 

We see this in Deuteronomy 28:56-58, where even the most delicate of women are driven to eat their placenta (afterbirth) and their literal children, due to the madness:

Deuteronomy 28: 56-58 (NIV) 

56 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter 

57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need, she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities.

58 If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name—the Lord your God—

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The Mention of the Word  Afterbirth (placenta) in the Bible:

As a side note, I typically use the KJV version but listed the NIV version above for ease of reading. The KJV uses the phrase “ young one” instead of afterbirth. This phrase young one in verse “57” is from the Hebrew word  “silya” which means after birth according to the Brown Driver-Briggs Lexicon and the Hebrew Chaldee Lexicon which defines this word as “afterbirth which comes from the womb after birth”.  

Interestingly, this is one of the only verses that I am aware of that uses this word referring to afterbirth in the Bible. The fact that one of the only mentions of this word in the Bible is in reference to women who are being driven to eat their afterbirth and children due to, essentially, a punishment for sin, should let us know that eating your placenta is not okay.

It's very clear that from God’s lens, no mother in their right, God-fearing mind, should be eating such things. 

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Overall, we see that being driven to eat flesh is a judgement that is repeated again and again throughout scripture:

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Additional Verses about Cannibalism in the Bible:

Jeremiah 19: 9 And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives shall straiten them.

Ezekiel 5:9-10: 9 And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations.

10 Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.

Lamentations 4:10: The hands of the pitiful women have sodden (this word means cooked) their children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

These are but a few of the mentions of cannibalism in the Bible. I encourage you to read each of these verses in the context. You will find that every time cannibalism is mentioned in the Bible, especially the consumption of the flesh of children,  it is the result of the people going mad due to the punishments that God was warning would befall his people if and when they turned from him. And if you read about the abominations they would do to lead to this punishment you will see why God allowed their punishment to be so harsh in the first place.  

Either way, you put it, it is clear that the only people in the Bible eating human flesh, especially that of their own children, whether “afterbirth” or otherwise, were wicked people who had forgotten God. Never ever do we see the righteous doing so.

‍I don’t know about you but I do not want to willingly do a thing that God’s Holy word is depicted as a result of punishment. 

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What about all the benefits of eating placenta ?

I truly pray that if you made it this far, I have convinced you as a sister in Christ not to put placenta on your plate. But before I end this article. I want to take a few moments to go over the arguments that the world provides in favor of this practice, so that I can provide some sound reason for you to lean back on, should you find people trying to convince you to eat your placenta.

One major argument I hear for why we should eat placenta is:

“But dozens of mammals eat their placenta, why shouldn’t we?

Dear sister, we must remember that we are not animals. We are a separate creation with separate expectations from God.  I can think of many things that animals do that would be heinous for us to do as humans. Just watch Nat Geo Wild or Animal Planet for 10 minutes. The things Bonobo monkeys do to their own children, for example,  would put a human in prison. Should we do such things just because the animal kingdom does? Of course not, God forbid!! We are not to be brute beasts as the Bible warns against, but rather, holy set-apart people that rule over the animal kingdom not adopt the ways of animals.

 God gave us His laws and our natural human intellect to set us apart. This applies to eating blood as well. We are not a mama lion who eats her placenta so hyenas won’t be alerted to the scent, we are human, made in the image of Yahweh.

"But placentas are rich in several vitamins and minerals needed for recovery!"

God gave us a variety of foods that we can eat to recover post-partum. Trust me. As a dietitian specializing in the prenatal/fertility space, I can tell you that you are 100% capable of nourishing your body outside of pregnancy without eating your own human flesh. Not to mention that placenta is not even that stellar from a nutritional perspective when compared to some non-human meat sources you can eat post-partum, but that is besides the main point.

Also, the argument that we should eat tissue that comes from our body just because we expelled it and it has nutrition does not mean we should. Would you eat your own menstrual blood just because it has vitamins and minerals? No. That would be REPULSIVE right? Right?? - Let me remind you that the placenta is built from the endometrial lining which literally sheds to form menstrual blood each month when not pregnant.....

“But women have been eating placenta for centuries to recover postpartum”...

Do you know how many cultures have been doing all kinds of things for thousands of years that God would never condone? Several!  In fact, in the Bible, there were groups of people who sacrificed their children to a god called Molech, an ancient practice that had been going on for centuries before the Israelites adopted doing so as well. By the way, if you read the entire chapter of Deuteronomy 28 discussed earlier in this article, and the surrounding context, you will see that killing and sacrificing children to this god was one of the abominations that God said would bring on the punishment of being driven to cannibalism. 

The moral of the story, as Christians, we can never use the “ancient traditions” argument to condone something God did not approve of. Who cares if other cultures or ones "ancestors" have been doing it for years. If the Bible provides wisdom against it then we do not do it.

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Dear sister in Christ, I hope this post gave you a Biblical perspective on the topic. I pray that no social media post, no midwife, no doula, no friend or influencer will encourage you, as a daughter of God, to eat your placenta or afterbirth or the basis of culture, history, health benefits, the animal kingdom, or otherwise.

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In Christ, May you be blessed 

-Ciara

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