CDC Warns Against Consumption of Dried Placenta Capsules

By Kelly Young

Edited by André Sofair, MD, MPH, and William E. Chavey, MD, MS

New mothers should not consume capsules containing their dried placenta and should be warned about the risks of doing so, the CDC cautions in MMWR.

In addition, in instances of late-onset group B Streptococcus (GBS) infection among newborns, the agency is telling clinicians to ask new mothers about whether they have ingested placenta.

In September, a newborn developed early-onset GBS bacteremia and was discharged after completing ampicillin treatment. Five days later, the child was admitted for late-onset GBS. An investigation found that the mother had ingested capsules containing her dried placenta. While the company that encapsulated the placenta asks mothers to report HIV, hepatitis, herpes, chlamydia, syphilis, and Lyme disease, it doesn't ask about mothers' intra-or postpartum infections.

The GBS isolates from the child's blood and placenta capsules were indistinguishable on pulsed-field gel electrophoresis.

The CDC says that the dehydration process may not have been hot enough or long enough to reduce GBS bacterial counts. Consuming the contaminated capsules may have increased the mother's GBS intestinal and skin colonization, possibly allowing bacterial transmission to the infant.