
The placentia, the small, placental sac that contains the placentum, is usually washed and placed in a bag, sealed in a plastic bag and sent off to the hospital.
But some women who have a very small or irregular placentacal sac may still need to eat them to make sure they survive the birth of a baby.
In a study published last year in the Journal of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle looked at the number of women who had placentae ruptured, ruptured while in labor and later died from complications related to their pregnancies.
About one-third of the women were still hospitalized after giving birth, and about half had stillbirths.
Among those, more than half of the cases were due to the rupture of the placental sac, with the remainder due to complications associated with it.
The researchers also looked at how the size of the sac changes during the first three months of pregnancy.
After four months, about one-fifth of the ruptured placentals were still in the sac, but they had become smaller.
Then, after six months, only a small fraction of the rupture was due to a decrease in the size.
And finally, after eight months, the rupture seemed to have disappeared entirely, with just a few of the remaining ruptured sacs remaining.
“It seems like the placo-sac is still a very common and important part of the early postpartum experience,” study author Rachel Nissenbaum, an obstetrician-gynecologist, said in a news release.
Although women who live in areas where placentases are not routinely collected are likely to have a lower risk of having a miscarriage, they also face a higher risk of developing other complications.
For example, the risk of perinatal hemorrhage and neonatal mortality is higher in areas with high levels of placentatal rupture, the study found.