How is the baby's placenta disposed in your culture?

When we had our first baby, one of the nurses on duty called me into their office and instructed me to get a polythene bag just across the road from the hospital. Before then, I'd been instructed to get several items ranging from medication to medical items. Thus, I didn't even think for a minute of what use would the polythene bag be put to. I just went to get the bag as instructed with the adrenaline of having a baby still running in my blood.

However, I became a bit confused when the nurse handed the polythene bag back to me, but this time, it contained something. I collected it and waited for further instructions with none forthcoming. I was forced to clarify.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked.

"The nylon contains the placenta of your newborn." The nurse replied, without saying anything further.

However, when she saw that I was still confused, she asked if the baby was my firstborn, to which I replied in the affirmative.

"No wonder. Well, the father of a newborn owns the placenta and has the prerogatives to dispose of it how he wants."

Not to sound too inquisitive, I accepted her explanation. It was later my mother-in-law explained to me that this is how it is done in our culture. She went further to explain that the usual practice to get rid of it is to find a secluded place where a hole is dug in the ground and the placenta is buried. This is because of the belief that ritualists are always on the lookout for placentas to do some voodoos.

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That was about five years ago. Yesterday, I had reasons to dispose of my third placenta. Yes, we had a new baby yesterday - a baby girl. Such a perfect gift since our first two are boys.

So, while I was burying the placenta in accordance with the usual cultural practice, something came to my mind. What if I decide to not conform to the cultural norm? I know nothing will really happen as there cannot be any scientific basis for connecting the placenta to the baby once the former has served its purpose while the latter is in gestation. But, how is the placenta discarded in other cultures?

This last question led to a journey of web research and some bizarre findings. While the baby's placenta is considered a medical waste in many Western countries (and disposed of like every other medical waste), many African and developing countries hold the organ in varied cultural regards. Even within Nigeria, where I am from, there are variations. One particularly interesting approach is to bury the placenta under a young, fruit-producing tree, preferably a tree species that is known to produce many fruits. The reason is that the more fruitful the tree is in the future, the more successful the baby will grow to become.^Ref

Beyond the shores of Nigeria, some cultures bury their baby's placentas at home as found in South Africa, some bury theirs within the courtyard of mosques as found in Turkey, while some don't bury theirs at all but hang them from a tree in the village's graveyard, after enclosing them within a coconut shell. ^Ref Among some cultures in Vietnam and China, the placenta serves as a source of food for mothers.^Ref

After discovering all these variations and seeing how blessed the Hive blockchain is when it comes to different cultures I thought it would be interesting to know how the placenta is disposed of by the cultures of the different people that we have on Hive. I have shared how we dispose of them in my own culture.

How is the placenta disposed of in your culture? Feel free to enrich our knowledge in the comment section.