Placenta Tincture: What is it and How Do I Use it?
Placenta tinctures are awesome! They're another great form of placenta medicine that will last much longer than your placenta capsules, so you can reap all of the long-term benefits from your placenta. Let's talk about what a tincture is...
A tincture is defined as "a medicine made by dissolving a plant or other specimen in alcohol." The alcohol dissolves & extracts the placenta, so that the alcohol takes on the medicinal properties of the placenta. The first tinctures date back to the first occurrences of distilling alcohol, when it was discovered that medicine could also be made from distilled alcohol, around 1000 CE. Tinctures didn't really catch on in the western world until much later, however they were a very common form of medicine by the Victorian age. Many people used to create their own home-remedy tinctures, however with the introduction of mail-order medicines, home crafting reached a decline. Once pharmaceuticals began creating medicine in pill form, the tincture started to fade away (persephonemagazine.com).
Tinctures are still a common form of medicine among some people, including herbalists and Traditional Chinese Medicine doctors. As placenta specialists, we love the use of placenta medicine in tincture form! There are so many benefits from taking your placenta long-term that you may not be able to experience once your capsules are gone. One of the first and most handy uses of your placenta tincture is to treat any PMS symptoms once your menstrual cycle returns again postpartum. However, you can essentially use your placenta tincture during any hormonal fluctuations that you have postpartum, even if you have stopped taking your placenta for some time. Most women will continue to have hormonal fluctuations throughout the first year postpartum, although they may be more spaced out than during your immediate postpartum, as your body is still trying to establish hormonal homeostasis. Some women will even request an extra tincture to store long-term to save for when they go through menopause. Using your placenta to treat menopause is like using your body's own natural hormone replacement therapy! Placenta medicine is also effective matrilineally. This means that if you give birth and your mother is going through menopause, you can give your placenta tincture to her to help with her menopausal symptoms. You can also save a tincture for when your daughter goes through puberty to help balance her hormones, too!
We offer placenta tinctures as an add-on placenta service. To make a placenta tincture, we take a raw piece of your placenta (about the size of the last digit of your thumb) and place it inside an amber tincture bottle with high-grade alcohol. High-grade alcohol is any alcohol with a proof ranging from 80-140. The higher the proof is, the better the tincture will work. The placenta piece is left to steep in the alcohol for a minimum of 6 weeks before being used. To use your placenta tincture, you may take 1-3 droppers full at a time. The most effective way is to squirt the dropper full under your tongue and hold it there for ~30 seconds before swallowing. For some people this may be a little uncomfortable, since the alcohol used to make the tincture is very strong. If you prefer, you may also add your dropper full to a glass of juice or water and drink quickly. Once you begin using your tincture and the jar becomes half empty, you can add more high-grade alcohol to it to extend its lifespan. You may keep adding alcohol to the tincture as long as you can still see placenta pieces in the liquid. Once the placenta has dissolved, your tincture's lifespan has run out. If you're interested learning more about placenta tinctures or if you'd like to add a tincture to your placenta package, give us a shout! If you haven't booked placenta services with us yet and you'd like to, you can add a placenta tincture to your placenta order when youbook placenta services with us at any time!
With Placenta Love,
Courtney
