“Why on earth would someone want to save their placenta?” This is the question the hospital staff asked me shortly after I gave birth to my twin daughters. That was over 10 years ago. Since that time it has become more common for new mothers to want to honor this amazing life sustaining organ, rather than allowing it to be disposed of as medical waste. But feelings of reverence for afterbirth is nothing new… it is just one more way that modern mamas are getting back in touch with their instincts and rediscovering the wisdom of our ancestors.

Those sacred placentas lived among the frozen veggies in the back of my freezer for a decade, during which time they traveled with us to our next home. There they were joined by my son’s placenta after his homebirth a few years later. We held onto my childrens’ placentas, occasionally marveling at them through ziplock freezer bags, until we finally moved onto to the land that we planned to cultivate for the nourishment of our family… and here they found their final resting place.

We buried our babies’ afterbirth next to our garden, with the hopes that they would nourish this piece of earth just as they had nourished our unborn children during my pregnancies.

Throughout this interstate multi organ transplant, I had this romantic notion of someday recounting my birth stories to our grown children, and maybe even to their children, while we tend the family garden together. Who knows if that will ever become a reality, but either way, I felt that this little ritual nourished my soul on a spiritual level, while nourishing my soil on a pragmatic level.

This week we unveiled the latest creations to emerge from the Family Tree Glass studio… our new Placenta pendants! I have been contacted quite a few times recently  by moms who were looking for a way to honor their own journey into motherhood, and to nourish the connection between ourselves, our babies, and our earth. Some had buried their placenta like we chose to do, and some had ingested it after giving birth to replenish their bodies of essential vitamins, minerals, and nutrients. Some mothers chose to have a lotus birth, some moms felt inspired to create art using their afterbirth, and some are postpartum doulas who are placenta encapsulation specialists. But all women, even those of us who never even saw their placenta before the hospital staff whisked it away to be incinerated, are all connected by our ability to sustain life.

So let’s honor this connection! Are you or do you know a mama who would love to wear one of these one-of-a-kind works of birth art? Is your midwife or doula a placenta enthusiast? Both designs are available starting today!