Are you are allowed to take home your placenta from St. Josephs hospital or Tacoma General hospital?
Washington State does not have any laws specifically referring to placentas but there are no laws against it so ultimately it is up the the hospitals to decide their policy. In other states, there have been some cases about whether a patient has the right to take home parts of their body that have been removed. The courts did find that that body parts belong to the patient, not the hospital.
Well, I have good news! Both St. Josephs and Tacoma General hospital will allow you to take home your placenta as long as your sign some paperwork ahead of time. This of course assumes that your placenta does not need to go for testing or need to be kept for some other medical reason. A good option if your placenta does need to go in for testing is to have the lab just take a piece of the placenta, rather then the whole thing. Then you can freeze your placenta while they you wait to see the results of the test.
UPDATE – Nearby hospital Good Sam in Puyallup is now keeping placentas for 3 days after birth. My information is that these placentas are not being kept in an appropriate sized fridge for the amount of placentas they have. This is not safe for encapsulation. If you want to have your placenta encapsulated, you will need to let them know that you WILL be taking YOUR placenta out of the hospital within a few hours after birth and be firm.
What if my doctor/midwife objects to me keeping my placenta?
Ultimately, it is YOUR placenta and you have a right to keep it. If you are set on placenta encapsulation and you think that your doctor or hospital may object, you can always say you want to keep the placenta for religious reasons. If you want to have a discussion with your doctor, ask them why they are objecting? Sometimes doctors have outdated information or are just plain wrong. I was at a birth one time where the midwife objected to us taking the placenta for encapsulation because it has meconium on it. She believed that this made it unsuitable for encapsulation. I explained that we just wash it off. It is not a contraindication for encapsulation.
As a note, for those birthing at the Birthing Inn in Tacoma or at home, you don’t need to fill out any paperwork to keep your placenta. Just make sure your midwife knows your wishes.
So, if you want to take home your placenta and you are having a hospital birth here in Tacoma, feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. Click HERE for more information about encapsulating your placenta.
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