Tired of just eating your placenta and burying the remainder in the community garden?
Well, now your placenta can stay with you forever in the form of a cuddly creation, thanks to sustainable arts company Precious Placentas.
Sure, there are DIY kits that allow you to make your own Placenta Bear, but what if you’re not crafty? Or don’t have the time? Or the tannin? Then let Precious Placentas do the work for you.
The company—founded by sisters Moonstone and Opal Slipkowski, artists and doulas—has recently expanded into taking donations so that they may fashion adorable afterbirths like bunnies, sheep, and cows for women who adopted their children, or, tragically, gave birth in hospitals and neglected to instruct their doctors to save their placentas. (Note: It’s a little known fact that sanctimony can also be used as a preservative.)
And the idea has really taken off! In addition to the ubiquitous Placenta Bear as well as traditional farm animals, the Slipkowskis now make other animals, but only in limited supply. You can collect them all! And each will increase in value as time passes, much like the child it once nurtured!
African safari placentas include lions, gorillas, and giraffes.
The American Plains line features deer, otters, and bison.
In time for the Chinese New Year, Precious Placentas plans to roll out placentas representing the Chinese zodiac, so new parents can now celebrate the year of their child’s birth with the appropriate animal sign.
The Placenta Dragon will also be part of their Mythical Creatures line, which will include unicorns and griffins, lending a whimsical air to any human organ display.
If the placenta you buy is not your own, there are optional add-ons. Harvest nail clippings and teeth from your child as it grows and these can be added to your Precious Placenta at a later date.
The reviews are in! The American Medical Association says, “Part of the womb-to-mantel movement, Precious Placentas marks one of the few times that previously discarded human tissue was collected and turned into a souvenir outside of the behavior of psychopaths.”
Add Precious Placentas to your baby registry today!
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About the Author
E. R. Catalano is a writer and mother of one evil mastermind living in Brooklyn, NY. She writes a humor blog at www.zoevstheuniverse.com. She is a contributor to The Bigger Book of Parenting Tweets and the forthcoming Lose the Cape: Never Will I Ever, and her humorous essays have appeared on Scary Mommy, In the Powder Room, Club Mid, BLUNTmoms, and Mamapedia. You can follow her on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse and on Facebook.