Placenta during birth
What is the placenta? | Pregnancy Birth and Baby
What is the placenta? | Pregnancy Birth and Baby beginning of content5-minute read
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The placenta is crucial to keeping your baby alive and well during pregnancy. It is an organ attached to the lining of the womb that delivers oxygen and nutrients to the growing baby.
About the placenta
The placenta is a large organ that develops during pregnancy. It is attached to the wall of the uterus, usually at the top or side. The umbilical cord connects the placenta to your baby.
Blood from the mother passes through the placenta, filtering oxygen, glucose and other nutrients to your baby via the umbilical cord. The placenta also filters out substances that could be harmful to your baby and removes carbon dioxide and waste products from your baby’s blood.
The placenta produces a number of hormones that are needed during pregnancy, such as lactogen, oestrogen and progesterone. It keeps the mother’s blood separate from the baby’s blood to protect the baby against infections. Towards the end of the pregnancy, the placenta passes on antibodies to protect the baby after birth.
Alcohol, nicotine and other drugs and medicines can cross the placenta and damage your baby.
What happens to the placenta during pregnancy?
The placenta often develops low in the womb but moves to the side or up as the womb stretches. The position of the placenta will be checked at your 18-week ultrasound.
The placenta is expelled from your body after the birth, usually about 5 to 30 minutes after your baby is born. This is called the third stage of labour.
After the baby is born you will continue to have mild contractions. You will have to give one more push to deliver the placenta. Sometimes your abdomen will be massaged or you will be given an injection of oxytocin and the umbilical cord will be gently pulled to help deliver the placenta.
If you have a caesarean section, the doctor will remove the placenta at the same time.
It is important that the whole placenta comes out after pregnancy. If any fragments of the placenta stay inside, they will have to be surgically removed to prevent bleeding and infection.
Normal position of the placenta during pregnancy.How to keep your placenta healthy
It is important to visit your healthcare provider regularly during pregnancy to check for any problems with your placenta.
Tell your doctor if you have had problems with the placenta in a previous pregnancy, or if you have had any surgery to your womb.
Don’t smoke, drink alcohol or take illegal drugs during pregnancy because this increases the likelihood you will have problems with the placenta. Always consult your doctor before you take any medicines, including over-the-counter medicines, natural therapies and supplements, while you are pregnant.
Speak with your doctor or midwife if you have any concerns, or if you experience:
- severe abdominal or back pain
- vaginal bleeding
- contractions
- any trauma to your abdomen, for example from a fall or car accident
Placenta complications
Problems with the placenta can potentially be dangerous for both mother and baby:
- Placenta accreta: When the placenta grows too deeply into the wall of the uterus.
This can lead to massive blood loss during or after delivery and can be life-threatening. - Placental abruption: When the placenta peels away from the wall of the womb before delivery. This can cause bleeding and will mean your baby may not be getting all the nutrients they need. In some cases, an early delivery may be needed.
- Placenta praevia: When the placenta partially or totally covers the cervix, the opening through which the baby will come out. This condition is more common early in pregnancy and often resolves as the placenta moves higher in the uterus as the uterus grows. If the placenta is still covering the cervix close to the time of delivery, a caesarean section will be necessary.
- Placental insufficiency: When the placenta doesn’t work properly during pregnancy, depriving the baby of oxygen and nutrients. This can affect the growth of the baby.
- Retained placenta: The placenta may not come out after the birth because it is blocked by the cervix or it is still attached to the uterus.
This can cause severe infection or blood loss, and can be life-threatening.
Options for the placenta after the birth
In some cultures, families bury the placenta in a special place.
There is also a rare practice, known as placentophagy, in which women cook and eat the placenta. Some commercial service providers will offer to turn your placenta into capsules for you to swallow.
However, these practices should be treated with caution since there is no regulation in Australia either of these products or the providers of placenta pills.
Recent research shows there are no known health benefits from eating the placenta, but there may be a risk of infection from poor production standards.
Sources:
Mayo Clinic (Is it safe to eat my placenta?), Archives of Women’s Mental Health (Placentophagy: therapeutic miracle or myth?), Women’s and Children’s Health Network (Routine antenatal tests), RANZCOG (Placenta accreta), Mayo Clinic (Placenta: how it works, what's normal)Learn more here about the development and quality assurance of healthdirect content.
Last reviewed: August 2020
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Related pages
- Mum's first 24 hours after birth
- Giving birth - stages of labour
- Placenta complications in pregnancy
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Delivering your placenta | Ready Steady Baby!
The third stage of labour is when your placenta and the bag that held your baby and the amniotic fluid (the membranes) are delivered. You may not know you’re in the third stage (or what’s going on) as you’ll be busy getting to know your baby.
Actively managed or unaided third stage?
In most hospital units, the third stage is 'actively managed' because it is known that women who opt to have this are at less risk of significant blood loss at delivery.
However, you may choose a physiological, 'unaided' third stage.
Your midwife can give you more information to help you decide what you’d prefer, and you can put your choice in your birth plan. Your midwife will take your wishes into account.
An actively managed third stage
An actively managed third stage helps to:
- speed up this stage of labour
- reduce your risk of heavy bleeding
During an actively managed third stage:
- you’ll have an injection to reduce the size of your womb
- your midwife will clamp and cut the umbilical cord
- you'll deliver the placenta with or without the help of your midwife
The injection
The injection's given when your baby's being born, and usually when their first shoulder's coming out or just afterwards.
Your midwife will ask if it’s okay to give you the injection and then put it into your thigh or buttock. The injection can sometimes make you feel sick.
Clamping and cutting the umbilical cord
Once your baby's born, the umbilical cord will be:
- clamped (pressed together) to stop the blood flowing
- cut between your baby and the placenta
Once your baby is born, the cord won't usually be clamped until it has stopped pulsating, at least a minute.
This ensures your baby receives all the blood from your placenta, which is good for your baby's iron levels.
The cord will be cut immediately if:
- it’s wrapped around your baby’s head and needs to be cut
- your baby needs medical help
Your baby will be kept below the level of your abdomen to make sure that all the blood from the cord has flowed through to them.
Delivering the placenta
As the injection starts to work, it makes your womb reduce in size. This helps the placenta to come away.
At this stage, you may be able to push the placenta out. But it’s more likely your midwife will help deliver it by putting a hand on your tummy to protect your womb and keeping the cord pulled tight. This is called cord traction.
Your placenta will come away, and the blood vessels that were holding on to it will close off as your womb gets smaller. This helps to prevent too much bleeding – although it’s normal to bleed a little.
You may feel the placenta slide down and out between your legs.
An unaided (physiological) third stage
An unaided third stage usually takes longer than an actively managed one. You don’t have an injection or cord traction.
Your body releases the hormone oxytocin when:
- you breastfeed your baby
- your baby lies on your chest with skin-to-skin contact
This helps your womb to tighten and push out the placenta and the membranes. Your baby’s cord is cut when it stops pulsing (usually after your placenta's been delivered).
Possible risks of an unaided third stage
Your midwife will weigh up the possible risks of having an unaided third stage if:
- you've had issues in the first or second stages of your labour (or with a previous birth)
- there’s a high chance you might bleed heavily
You can still choose to do this, but your midwife won't be able to recommend it because an actively managed third stage would be safer for you and your baby.
Complications during the third stage
Possible complication of the third stage include:
- primary postpartum haemorrhage (heavy bleeding)
- issues delivering the placenta if it doesn't come away from the womb
Primary postpartum haemorrhage
Post-partum haemorrhage (PPH) is a complication that can occur during the third stage of labour, after a baby is born.
Losing some blood during childbirth is considered normal. PPH is excessive bleeding from the vagina at any time after the baby's birth, up until 6 weeks afterwards.
More about primary postpartum haemorrhage
Assisted delivery of the placenta
Sometimes the placenta doesn’t come away from your womb. If this happens you'll need assistance to have it taken out. This is usually done with an epidural or spinal anaesthetic.
About 1 in 50 women will need this procedure.
If this happened when you had a baby before, it would be one of the reasons why your midwife might suggest you have an actively managed third stage.
Translations and alternative formats of this information are available from Public Health Scotland.
10 amazing facts about the placenta
Home "News" 10 amazing facts about the placenta
10.10.2020
Liat Ben -Senior, MBA MSC
Placenta - this is a rescue circle between mother and her child, the organ in which the connection between them is first established.
Scientists consider the placenta the least studied human organ, but one of the most important organs of the body. It affects the health of a woman and her baby during and even after pregnancy. In honor of the incredible properties of the placenta, we list 10 amazing facts about it.
Emma Jean Photography
- Small but powerful - the parachute-shaped placenta is a highly specialized organ that helps support your baby's development. The middle placenta is 23 cm across, about 3 cm thick and usually weighs 500-600 grams. The blood of mother and baby passes through the placenta but never mixes. At term, about 500 ml of mother's blood passes through the placenta every minute. This alone is amazing (and also explains why pregnancy is so exhausting).
- One organ, many functions - Your developing baby does not eat or breathe and relies solely on its mother for nutrients and oxygen. The placenta acts like a baby's lungs, supplying oxygen and removing carbon dioxide.
It also acts like a baby's kidneys, filtering waste products from the bloodstream. - The placenta is not a maternal organ - In fact, the placenta develops from a fertilized egg, which means that, like a child, it is genetically half from mom and half from dad. The placenta begins to form as soon as a fertilized egg implants in the uterine wall, about 6-7 days after conception, and continues to grow with your baby to meet her growing needs.
- The placenta is also a gland - The placenta acts like a gland, releasing hormones during pregnancy that are important in supporting your growing baby and preparing your body for motherhood.
- The placenta is an immune mediator - The placenta helps the mother's and baby's immune systems to talk to each other without fighting. During pregnancy, the placenta prevents the mother's body from perceiving the child as foreign and from attacking it. During the 3rd trimester, the placenta allows mom's antibodies to pass to the baby, giving your baby a booster immune system, and this protection lasts up to 6 months after birth.
- Identical twins can share a placenta - Fraternal twins develop from two separate fertilized eggs and will always have two placentas. But the number of placentas in identical twins is determined by whether the fertilized egg splits before or after the formation of the placenta.
- Your baby's stem cells are coming to you - baby's stem cells can cross the placenta and seem to target areas where the mother has been damaged. Even years later, small amounts of cells from previous pregnancies can be found in the mother's skin, organs, and bone marrow. This phenomenon is called "microchimerism of the fetus and mother."
- The only disposable organ - the placenta will re-develop with each pregnancy to support your baby's growth. After completing its mission, the placenta comes out after the baby is born, which is why it is called the "afterbirth".
- The placenta prepares your body for breastfeeding - The placenta produces a hormone that inhibits the production of breast milk.
After the placenta is delivered, the mother's body receives a signal that it is time to produce milk. - The placenta can help us fight cancer - The placenta has the unique ability to grow and enter the mother's body without being attacked by the immune system. This ability to evade the immune system is highly regulated, and the placenta knows how to stop intrusion before harming the mother. The researchers hope that a better understanding of how the placenta works will help us fight cancers that elude the immune system.
The placenta is not only a wonderful organ during pregnancy, but for life. If you choose to donate or save placental stem cells, they will not be disposed of as biological waste.
Liat Ben-Senior holds an MBA and MSc in Human Genetics from the Sackler School of Medicine of Tel-Aviv University, Israel. She has over 15 years of experience in Marketing and Digital Marketing in the field of Biotech and Life Sciences.
Her scientific background includes immunology and molecular biology research, both in academia as well as industry. Her management background includes business development and commercialization of early stage medical devices, cellular, and small molecule therapies. For over a decade, Liat worked with CReATe Cord Blood Bank as Business Manager. At CReATe, Liat focused on educating expectant parents and health care professionals about the cord blood banking options available in the Canadian market. Starting in 2020, Liat is the Marketing Manager at Anova Fertility & Reproductive Health. Liat strongly believes in empowering expectant parents so they can make an informed decision.
What to do with the placenta? 10 uses
The placenta (baby place, afterbirth, storage) is a unique organ. It appears only for 8-9 months to provide the unborn child with oxygen and all the necessary nutrients, but after the third stage of labor it becomes unnecessary. What can be done with the placenta after the doctor examined it and said that everything is in order? There are at least 10 options, and each has its supporters.
Eat. This is exactly what female placental mammals do after giving birth, even herbivores. After all, the afterbirth contains many valuable nutrients, and after giving birth in the wild, you need to restore strength as soon as possible in order to be able to run and get food again.
Women still do this too, especially in parts of Asia. Some experts recommend eating the placenta for the prevention of postpartum depression and anemia. However, in our time, placentophagy has acquired many exotic forms: since it is rather problematic for a civilized person to simply eat a raw afterbirth, as in the wild, the placenta is either heat-treated, like ordinary meat, or smoothies are prepared, or encapsulated. To do this, the placenta must be steam-dried, turned into powder, and then taken in the form of capsules. Of course, only those who have the appropriate technical capabilities resort to such methods. However, you should be aware of the risks: the placenta contains hormones, is not sterile, and may even be infected.
Bury. In our climatic latitudes, the placenta was most often buried in the ground. This could be accompanied by rituals: the placenta was washed, sprinkled with fragrant herbs, spices, put in an embroidered bag (they could cover it with a layer of wet clay and dry it so that it would not become food for wild animals), and only then they put it in a specially prepared hole - under the house, in a wasteland but most often under a tree. If a girl was born, the placenta was buried under a "female" tree - for example, an apple tree. If the family was replenished with a boy, the children's place was buried under a maple or oak tree so that the guy would grow up strong and powerful. Nowadays, the placenta can be buried under the so-called "family tree" to ensure the baby's health and well-being, or they can simply be buried in a flower bed - they say, this is how flowers grow better.
Bury. In some countries (particularly on the island of Bali), it is customary not just to bury the placenta, but to ritually hide it in a cemetery, believing that it is a living being.
Make decoration. The placenta looks good in epoxy, so some women order a pendant, bracelet, ring or necklace from their own placenta from jewelers. Such decoration should symbolize the bond between mother and child.
Dry for memory. Sometimes dried placentas are used in art compositions or sewn into toys.
Sell. Cosmetics made using the placenta are very popular on the market - creams, gels, serums, shampoos, etc. Especially effective are products with a placenta in anti-aging cosmetology - because in this way you can stimulate the appearance of new cells, as well as activate the production of collagen and elastin, and the skin becomes more elastic. Therefore, some women sell their afterbirth. Although, of course, you won’t earn a lot of money this way.
Use in homemade skin cream. However, a cream that will help heal the skin, reduce scars and stretch marks, and even heal sore or cracked nipples is even made independently.
To do this, placenta powder is added to other components.
Dispose of. In Ukraine, this is the most common scenario for the development of events. Maternity hospitals are guided by a protocol for handling biowaste: after the completion of the third stage of labor, the placenta is examined and sent for freezing in a special chamber. When it is full, the placentas are taken for disposal - more often they are buried, less often they are burned.
Deposit in the cryobank. Today, the placenta - like cord blood - is used to isolate the most valuable mesenchymal stem cells. Even now, stem cells are successfully used for the treatment of various diseases and in cosmetology, this area is rightly called "medicine of the XXI century." Therefore, such a “contribution” can be a very profitable investment in the health of the child and the longevity of the parents. Interestingly, stem cells are obtained from a smaller part of the placenta, from the amnion and chorion, which are genetically related to the child.
