How Much Is a Placenta Really Worth?
I hear this one a lot when I tell people what I do:
“Hospitals sell your placenta for $50,000.”
And it tracks.
I mean, society profits off women’s bodies and labor all the time.
But when you really sit with the facts, the real story is possibly more disturbing than any black-market placenta fantasy you’ve read about on Reddit.
First: No one is legally buying anyone’s placenta
Since 1984, thanks to the Organ Transplant Act, it’s been illegal in the U.S. to sell human body parts. Your placenta is an organ, which, to be clear, is a body part. So sadly, we wouldn’t be able to sell them for 50K even if we wanted to.
(Can you imagine the app someone would create for that?)
We, the placenta owners, don’t get paid. Ever.
So, again, while it would definitely be more interesting, there's no secret vault in the hospital where they stash placentas until payday.
But this certianly doesn’t mean placentas aren’t valuable.
So what is a placenta worth?
Your placenta isn’t trash. In fact, as the original article that started all the hype put it, it’s a “biological toolbox for cures.”
Here are some of the ways Western medicine uses, or will possibly use, placenta tissue:
Burn and wound care
Growing new skin
Stem cell research
Orthopedics
Ophthalmology
Gynecology
Vascular disease
Regenerative medicine
And every part of your placenta is valuable to science. The cord blood, the amniotic membrane, the chorion, Wharton’s jelly, stem cells… they want it all.
Biotech companies collect and process your placenta into products that have value.
Those products get sold to hospitals, clinics, and researchers. We’re talking big money here.
But still, not for you.
So what happens to your placenta After you give birth?
In NJ, as in all 50 states, you have the legal right to keep your placenta. It’s yours as much as your baby is.
If you don’t take ownership of it, however, usually one of three things will happen:
1. Your placenta gets incinerated
It’s put in a red biohazard trash bag.
Then gets picked up by a medical waste company, who gets paid by the hospital (but really by you, or your insurance if you’re lucky.)
Then it’s burned.
This obviously all costs hospitals money.
But what’s worse is that all that unnecessary burning releases more methane, a greenhouse gas that’s driving climate change, into the air.
2. It gets “donated”
It goes to a tissue bank or research partner.
They turn it into medical products.
They sell those products.
You are not paid.
Hospitals still pay for collection, storage, and transport.
And you gave away something valuable that you made (for free) and someone else profits.
3. You keep it
Bury it. Plant a tree.
Or encapsulate it.
Because when we keep our placentas, everyone wins.
The hospital avoids disposal costs.
The environment gets a little less polluted.
And only you experience bodily autonomy.
Let’s get into the environmental piece
In New Jersey, about 100,000 babies are born every year. And an average human placenta weighs about 1.25 pounds. (Fun fact: it’s about ⅙ of your baby’s weight.)
That means 125,000 pounds of placentas (about 62.5 tons of “waste”) are being treated as medical waste every year.
That’s the weight of about 10 adult elephants.
Burned. Into the air.
And since medical waste disposal costs 3–10x more than normal trash (about $0.40–$1.50 per pound from what I could gather) compared to the $0.05–$0.15 per pound it costs to dispose of household trash…
Based on my calculations, NJ hospitals are spending A LOT on placenta incineration.
What could they do with that money instead?
Oh, the possibilities are endless, right?
That money could pay for, I don’t know…
Postpartum doula visits for all
Mental health support
In-home breastfeeding support
Birth recovery kits
Newborn boxes like they have in Finland
I mean, we all know it would go to the CEO and shareholders, but a girl can dream, right?
Well? How much is a placenta worth?
Not $50,000 to you.
But to medicine, biotech, and research… it’s worth a lot.
So remember, while no one is paying $50K for a single placenta, there are plenty of folks making some serious coin off of your “afterbirth.”
And right now, unless you tell them otherwise, you get nothing.
Keep your placenta
Yeah yeah. I’m a placenta encapsulator, so of course I’d try to get you to keep your placenta. But honestly, I just don’t want them to have it. Because it’s yours. It’s as simple as that.
This isn’t just about placenta pills (though I would be super stoked to work with you).
What it is about is bodily autonomy, environmental waste, and who gets to profit from our bodies and our labor.
Everyone wins when we keep our placentas.
Take yours home with you— or let me pick it up and turn it into pills for you.
Click here to learn more.
