Image Collection | A Photo Gallery Celebrating the Placenta
The placenta is both a deeply understood and a completely mysterious organ, depending on who you talk to. Birth workers and midwives could go on and on about the wonders of the placenta, while many parents don’t give a second thought to the organ their body grew. Neither approach is better than the other, but because we count ourselves among the birth worker circle, we can’t help but devote an entire blog post to our favorite pictures celebrating the placenta. It doesn’t matter where these photos were taken, a birth center, home birth or hospital, after a water birth or a cesarean section, the placenta still has strange beauty we just can’t deny. We love every time a midwife, labor and delivery nurse, or one of our own Gather Birth doulas, gives a family a tour of their placenta.
From the more meaty-side, which is attached to the placenta, to the amazing “Tree of Life” veins that stretch from the baby’s side, each placenta is completely unique. As our co-founder Gina likes to say, “It’s the snowflake of organs.” Placentas can be larger or smaller. They can be round, oblong or even heart-shaped. Some umbilical cords attach in the center, while others secure closer to the side. The umbilical cord can be deeply embedded into the placenta, or the veins can be separate, called velamentous insertion. Twins can share a placenta, making them identical twins, or we can grow separate placentas for each baby, which is the case for most fraternal twins. We’ve seen many placentas, and yet somehow, we’re still captivated by how much they do for babies.
The placenta holds a lot of power during your pregnancy and birth. As your kiddo grows from tiny cell to wiggling baby, your placenta grows with them, nourishing them the entire way. Our baby’s placenta isn’t created until they are, meaning it’s an organ we grow solely to take care of our baby in utero. Through the uterine wall, our placenta nourishes our baby using the attached umbilical cord. Through the same cord and our placenta, our baby is given all the oxygen they need while they grow. After our baby’s birth, our placenta detaches from our uterus, setting off a flood of hormones signaling to our body we’re no longer pregnant and postpartum time can begin.
Now that you know a little more about this amazing organ, without further ado: The magnificent placenta.
