I’ve been waiting a little while to write and share this post with you, as I really wanted to give it some proper time and therefore be able to give a really honest and real account of my recovery post-birth and the supplements and products that helped my body to bounce back and have the strength and energy to breastfeed and look after Lily Rose.

I know that lots of bloggers like to share their birth story too – the main reason I didn’t is that I had to have a planned C-section (due to the placenta being low and blocking the way out for natural delivery) so in actual fact, the birth was pretty simple and straight forward.

We arrived at the hospital at 6am on the first May 1st, and by 7.48am I had Lily Rose in my arms!

It was a surreal and wonderful experience and we were looked after so well by the wonderful Mark Johnson and his team. We were referred to Mark after the tragic loss of our first baby at 22 weeks - he is one of the leading specialists in preterm birth and we felt in such safe hands throughout the pregnancy and Lily Rose’s birth. He runs a charity, called Borne, which I am hoping to get more involved with this year, as it does such wonderful work. More on that to follow.

For now though I want to tell you about a service that we signed up for and I’m SO pleased we did as it was totally amazing. I had first heard of the Placenta Practice through friends – it’s a company that was set up a few years ago by a former doula and specialises in Placenta collection and encapsulation. All my friends who had tried it raved about how amazing it was (a lot of them had only done it with baby number two and so could really compare the difference between births and how they felt afterwards.) I was sure it was something that I wanted to include in my birth plan and so contacted Amanda to sign up.

Amanda was the UK’s first Placenta Encapsulation Specialist to be certified and qualified as a Phlebotomist, so we felt in safe hands. After chatting with her, we decided that we would collaborate, as I was really keen to try her full package of products and she was keen for an honest review in return. I know that this is something that will be relevant to a lot of you (not all of course), but I felt enough of my readers would benefit from hearing more about it and whether it was worth trying or not.

I chose the Premium Nurturing Mother & Baby Package, as I really wanted to make the most of the nutrients in my placenta. This included the Combined Placenta Capsules, Placenta Cream for Mother, Placenta Balm for Mother & Baby, as well as the Placenta Tincture and Placenta Essence. We also opted for the Gold collection option, which was amazing and meant that Amanda collected it from the hospital within a few hours of my giving birth. At first, I found the whole process slightly daunting, but once she explained everything and the kit arrived, it all seemed much easier. She sent us the Placenta Collection Box, which we then gave to our midwives when we arrived at the hospital. They then packaged it all up for us and gave the box back to Patrick, who called Amanda and she was there within a few hours. Totally amazing service!

She then worked away making the capsules and balms etc and delivered them back to the hospital within 48 hours. We were so impressed! When I got home from the hospital I started taking the capsules – now I had lost a lot of blood during delivery (I had placenta previa, which meant that this was more likely, so I was prepared). I knew my iron levels were borderline for treatment, so was excited to get started on these magic pills.

The placenta contains so many wonderful nutrients including iron (for a full list click here) and so instead of reaching for an iron supplement, I thought I would give these a try instead. I have to say that after the first week or so my energy really bounced back – I felt amazing and as each week went by I felt better and better. I look back now with such fondness for the gorgeous summer weather and this wonderful feeling of wellness. I’m sure that part of it is natural as you do produce more hormones including Oxytocin when breastfeeding, but I also put a lot of it down to Amanda’s amazing capsules.

The Placenta Balm for Mother & Baby was also amazing – we used it on Lily when she had signs of nappy rash and it cleared and soothed it straight away. I also really enjoyed using the Placenta Cream for Mother, I have only used it a bit as I want to save it for as long as I can!

A few months later the Tincture and Essence arrives – the Tincture is for Mother and the Essence for Baby and I am now using the Tincture every month in the run-up to my period to calm my hormones (I can suffer from terrible PMT) and so far I think it’s really helping. The essence has a wonderful calming effect on Lily – I put a few drops in her milk when she is teething and it really helps.

So overall I can’t recommend Amanda and the Placenta Practice enough. It’s genuinely been amazing – I felt SO good whilst taking the capsules that I joke with Patrick that we need to have another baby so I can take them again! They really were that good and I would recommend anyone who is pregnant or thinking about it in the future to add this to your birth plan – I’m pretty confident you won’t regret it, after all, in many cultures around the world it is normal for people to ingest the Placenta (in varying ways from cooking it to making smoothies!). For me, encapsulation was the only way I would have done it and it was totally fab.

Laura x

Ps. If this is something that you are interested in, then mention my name when booking with Amanda and she will include a complimentary baby balm worth £40!

This post was in collaboration with Placenta Practice, but as always, all styling, thoughts and opinions are my own.

Photography by Sophie Lindsay and Patrick Butler-Madden.