Sharna Burgess says she’s ingesting her own placenta in pill form to help aid in her postpartum recovery after welcoming son Zane in June.
The Dancing With the Stars performer explained in an Instagram story Q&A how she digests her “processed” placenta.
“I highly recommend this,” she responded to a fan when asked for more information about the placenta pills. “So I had my placenta picked up by our baby nurse who is also doula. She processed my placenta in whatever way it needs to be done and put it into capsules for me.”
The dancer explained she takes two placenta pills a day “like a vitamin” and claims they “help with hormone balancing, milk production, PPD prevention and all round recovery.”
“My only testimony I can give is that my recovery has been amazing and my mood and milk the whole time have been positive,” she wrote.
Placentophagy, or eating placenta, has become a growing trend with mothers in recent years, and even celebrities like Kim Kardashian and January Jones have praised its reported effects. Fans of the practice claim it can help increase milk supply and lower chances of developing postpartum depression.
Placenta – the organ that develops in the uterus during pregnancy – can be consumed in a number of ways: added into smoothies; dried, powdered and put into capsules; and even cooked or steamed.
However, there is no evidence to suggest the practice actually provides health benefits to mothers after giving birth. A 2019 study from the University of British Columbia found that eating the placenta provided no mental health benefits for new mothers. And the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found “no scientific evidence” of any clinical benefit of placentophagy just one year prior.
In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned against eating the placenta due to a case in which a newborn was infected with group B strep after the mother took contaminated placenta pills and breast-fed her newborn. The Mayo Clinic also warns against ingesting your own placenta because these preparations don’t completely destroy infectious bacteria and viruses that the placenta might contain.
Sharna Burgess, 37, welcomed her first child with actor Brian Austin Green, 49, on 28 June. In a candid Instagram post, the Australian dancer detailed her son’s “scary” birth story after undergoing an emergency C-section.
“Our little Zane was trying so hard to get out but after 30+ hrs of labor and my water breaking TWICE, I just wasn’t dilating enough,” she wrote in the caption alongside a mirror selfie of her C-section scar. “In the moment it was scary…But Zane arrived healthy and happy and that was always the priority.”
Burgess and Green have been dating since 2020. The actor is also a father to four children – Noah, nine, Bodhi, eight, and Journey, five, with Megan Fox and Kassius, 20, with Vanessa Marcil.
