The Making of Elixir

Went back to work on Monday and has been busy. Busy applying for no pay leave, busy making my claims. Now trying to claim whatever I can before I go on no pay leave, every cents counts now.


I read about using the placental to make to chinese medicine quite sometime back ago even before my elder son was born but it never cross my mind to keep it. Furthermore, I pledged to donate the cord blood to KKH so did not went to any more research about it. Anyway, my first delivery was a kind of a rush, water bag burst, being a first time mum I was so panicky that my mind was blank most of the time. Thus, forgot to ask my gynae to "Tabao" the placental back.


Ok , here is some background on Placental. The chinese name for the dried placental is 紫车河. 胎盘既非草木，又非金石，世上也没有紫河，何以命名为“紫河车”呢？其实，这名字的来历带有浓厚的神话色彩。据《本草纲目》解释，“天地之先，阴阳之祖，乾坤之始，胚胎将兆，九九数足，胎儿则乘而载之”，其遨游于西天佛国，南海仙山，飘荡于蓬莱仙境，万里天河，故称之为河车。母体娩出时为红色，稍放置即转紫色，因此，入药时称为“紫河车”。


What is it use for ?


功用] 补气，养血，益精。 [主治] 虚损、羸瘦、咳血气喘、劳热骨蒸、遗精等症。


I read alot about it and a chinese sinseh even kept her son's placental in the freezer for years and scrap a bit to let the son eat when he had a cough or ill. Some even say is good for mummy's complexion and cooked the placental with Spaghetti! :P . Well, the thoughts already irks me. No way I'm going to cook the placental as a meal. My elder son, Samuel is very proned to cough and so I thought, why not keep Matthew's placental and both of them can eat! It will be better then to get the one from the chinese medicinal hall where the source of placental is in doubt. I asked around and post on forum and I found a lady who got a friend who does it for people at a cost. Now they set up a web site to do it. It was kind of expensive, $100 plus. For those who is not comfortable to DIY and willing to pay can look up at this web site. http://www.freewebs.com/mommycozyhaven/
Please note that I don't know them at all and have no share in this business and I am not advertising for them. Just put it here to share the info.

My hubby is also not comfortable with this idea so I end up looking for the recipe to DIY. For those mummies who are interested, I had attach the recipe below :~


Placental Capsule Preparation


For washing the placenta, use salt sparingly, because salt will actually make the placenta 'cold'. You can also use a can of coke to clean it. Wash away all the blood. Instead of steaming it, buy some 金银花 and 甘草, boil them in water, afterwards, put in the placenta and boil it for 1/2 hour. This will get rid of the 'fishy' smell.

Slice it to thin slices, the thinner the better because it will be easier to dry. My hubby cut it so thick that I took a long time to dry it.

Sun it like you would with chinese herbs. Put it out in the sun, bring it indoors to keep. If the weather is bad, bake it in the oven till crisp. Watch your fire coz I burned mine a bit. DO NOT put into the fridge because this will cause moisture deposit on the placenta.

Grind it to powder and get empty capsule from medicinal hall to put the powder in.

Use a piece of clean baking paper and pour the grinded placental powder.

Open the capsule and press onto the powder, press a few time till it filled up with the powder. Depending the size of your placental, it will make around 150-200 capsules.


I have already taken the powder TWICE! Taste…. hmmm, don't know, i swallowed it with a big gulp of water. Gave Matthew a bit as he cannot poo, so i was hoping that this helps. He did poo once after taking it but after that back to sqare one, he dun poo anymore. I do not feel that my skin is better or more radiant, maybe I did not take enough. For those mummies who had try please share your view point on eating placental with me :)