In The News: School of Public Health
Eating the placenta does not prevent postpartum depression, new research reveals.
Many animals eat their placenta after birth. Zoologists know this is to ward off predators, but when the "natural" birth movement took off in the 1960s, believers stated that if animals do it, it must be for a health reason and humans should also.
Ingesting the placenta has become a popular practice among moms, with celebrities like TV personality Kim Kardashian West and actress January Jones claiming that it helps boost energy and deal with postpartum depression.
A study has recently suggested that new mothers consuming placenta pills, following childbirth, will experience little to no effect on their post-partum mood, maternal bonding or fatigue.
When you're expecting your first baby, the amount of conflicting information on pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting out there can be overwhelming. Should you breastfeed or use formula? Co-sleep or not? So many choices are fraught with controversy, but there's one decision that's now easier to make than ever, because there's even more evidence that women shouldn't be eating their placentas, in any form. It's true that many other mammals do so, but whether you're blending it into a smoothie or popping freeze-dried pills, placentophagy offers no benefits to humans, and it can actually be extremely dangerous for both mother and child.
Celebrity socialite Kim Kardashian West says it boosted her energy level. Mad Men’s January Jones touts it as a cure for postpartum depression. But does eating one’s placenta after birth—an apparently growing practice around the globe—actually confer any health benefits? Not really, according to the first in-depth analyses of the practice.
Health care options for thousands of Nevadans narrowed significantly Monday after health insurer Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield — one of the largest health insurance companies in the U.S. — announced it would withdraw from Nevada’s Obamacare state exchange in 2018. Fourteen counties in Nevada are at risk of not having an insurance provider on the state’s individuals insurance exchange in 2018.
Just weeks after its initial class, the UNLV School of Medicine appointed an acting dean on Wednesday as founding dean Dr. Barbara Atkinson recovers from surgery. Dr. Shawn Gerstenberger, current dean at the School of Community Health Sciences, will serve as the acting dean.
The U.S. Senate’s draft of a new health care bill promises to cut funding toward Medicaid expansion and cap the program’s budget. Meanwhile, Nevada this month was a signature away from creating a potentially precedent-setting law that would have opened Medicaid coverage to all state residents.
800 pinwheels blow in the wind in Carson City, placed in one of the most prominent areas-- the legislative complex. Organizers hope the spinning wheels will bring attention to child abuse and its prevention.
UNLV is among the universities around the country participating in a push by the Obama administration to demographically shore up the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace by signing up more young adults.
Summer colds are the worst.
You’re not sure how you caught one, but you did — and now you’d love to know where it came from. Or maybe that’s one of those medical mysteries, the kind that Mary Guinan, Ph.D., M.D. solved. In her new book “Adventures of a Female Medical Detective” (with Anne D. Mather), she takes you on some not-so-cold cases.