Pregnant Khloe Kardashian is poised to go the extra mile to make sure that she and her first child are healthy. That’s why the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star announced she would eat her baby’s placenta, an organ composed of fetal and maternal components, after giving birth.
Kardashian, who is expecting her first child with NBA beau Tristan Thompson, is due in late March or early April. The reality star, 33, made the big announcement during Sunday’s episode of KUWTK , according to the Daily Mail .
Placenta, which develops in a pregnant woman’s uterus, provides oxygen and nutrients to the baby and removes waste products from the baby’s blood. The temporary organ, which grows in the womb during pregnancy and is delivered after the delivery of the fetus, measures about seven inches in diameter and less than two inches thick. It can weigh up to three pounds.
Khloe Kardashian is not the first Kardashian to eat her placenta after giving birth. Back in 2015, her sister Kim Kardashian hired Joni Lucarelli to turn her placenta into pills after giving birth to son Saint West. During the most recent KUWTK episode, Khloe said she would follow suit and eat her encapsulated placenta.
Lucarelli, who has been encapsulating placentas for nearly a decade, has turned roughly 500 placentas into pills for her clients, including some celebrities. The woman charges around $350 for between 100 and 200 placenta capsules that many claim can prevent post-partum depression, alleviate post-partum pain, and even increase breast milk production.
After the soon-to-be mom revealed her desire to eat her placenta, Kim opened up about her own experience with ingesting the umbilical chord.
“My placenta was like double the size, it was really oddly big, so she gave me two jars,” Kim recalled, which prompted her pregnant sister to grimace while eating a bowl of salad.
“Ewwww! I really can’t deal with that belly button, placenta thing,” Khloe complained, to which her sister responded, “It’s so nasty, I can’t take it.”
However, Kim was quick to insist that eating placenta gave her “great results,” and she even felt “energized” and had no signs of post-partum depression. The reality star also claimed that taking a pill would give her a “surge of energy” and make her feel “really healthy and good.”
As seen from the most recent ultrasound, Khloe was into her second trimester, and the fetus was already five inches long. Even though Kim Kardashian can’t seem to stop gushing about the benefits of eating the placenta, a 2015 report by CNN called the benefits of eating placenta “fuzzy,” while the New York Magazine noted that the medical establishment considers placentas “ biohazardous waste .”
