Could placenta be the key to postpartum recovery?

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Jodi Selander remembers how she felt after giving birth to her first child in 2005. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

"After she was born, I felt like I had been hit by a truck," said Selandar, from Nevada. "It was overwhelming. My mood was poor, and I was exhausted. Everything felt so hard."

Selander didn't want to experience those symptoms ever again, so she did her own personal research into the matter. Following her next pregnancy, she decided to turn to – of all things –  her placenta, as a cure for her postpartum blues. Selander consumed her placenta through a process of dehydrating and grounding it into a powder that was then encapsulated into pills.  

Now, Selander owns a company that performs this service for women in the Las Vegas area.

The mother of three recently teamed up with researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to conduct a three-month survey of 189 women who had consumed their placenta after birth.  They asked the women why they had done it, how they consumed it (dehydrated, steamed or raw) and if they would try it again.

The results, which were published in the journal Ecology of Food and Nutrition, showed that 95 percent of participants reported a positive or very positive experience.

"Things like improved lactation, postpartum bleeding was alleviated, and postpartum recovery was either sped up or improved in general," said Sharon Young, a researcher and a UNLV graduate student.

But as with every study, there were some negative experiences.

"(These) primarily had to do with the appeal – the appeal of the placenta itself even in capsules – and things like unpleasant belching," said Daniel Benyshek, another member of the research team and UNLV medical anthropologist.

The placenta's role in curing these conditions is still up for debate, with both Selander and researchers at UNLV stating that more studies need to be done.

"There's still a lot of criticism: ‘Well you don't know what it's doing, or it's probably just placebo effect' and things like that," said Selander. "We'd really like to actually have a study that tests placenta versus placebo."

Pete Griffin is part of the Junior Reporter program at Fox News. Get more information on the program here.

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Woman who smashed spine falling down stairs makes miracle recovery in 10 days

A woman who smashed her spine in a horrific fall that could have left her paralyzed has made a miraculous recovery — in just 10 days.

Natalie Morris suffered such shocking injuries to her back that doctors warned her she may never walk again.

A vertebrae in the brunette’s spine had cracked and burst open, breaking the bone and tearing all the ligaments and tendons surrounding it.

Doctors described the break as “toe curling,” but Morris has been left with no lasting injuries, and has recovered from her fall.

The 26-year-old said: “I can’t believe how lucky I am. When I first went to (the hospital) they thought I’d just banged myself up a bit, but as soon as my scans came back all hell broke loose.

“Everyone presumed the worst and they told me that in a worst case scenario, I could be paralyzed. I was terrified — I thought I’d never walk again.

“They did some tests and luckily I had some feeling in my lower legs so it was a good sign, but I never thought I’d have recovered so quickly.

“A doctor who saw me had been treating someone who’d had the same type of fall as me — but he’d been referred to another hospital because he’s never going to walk again. It really is a miracle that I’m ok.”

Doctors built a cage around Morris’ spine in a seven-hour operation to stabilize her back.

Morris, from South Yorkshire, U.K, said, “The vertebra was hanging onto the rest of my spine. Surgery was the best option.”

Morris, who works in finance, suffered the horrific injury when she fell down the steep stairs of her terraced home during the night.

She said: “I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet but I didn’t turn on the light.

“I missed my footing on the way to the bathroom and the next thing I knew I was in a pile at the bottom of the stairs.

“I didn’t really know what had happened but I could feel a searing pain right in the middle of my back.

“Thanks to the adrenaline, I was able to crawl over to my sofa where I rang National Health Service Direct (a medical help service). I explained what had happened and they told me to call an ambulance immediately."

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ECONOMIC STANDSTILL:Americans Impatient Amid Meager Recovery

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  Feb. 25, 2013: Job seekers line up to speak with a State Department employee about job opportunities in the federal government during a job fair in Boston.AP

The U.S. economy is teetering further on the edge of recession, with revised numbers showing economic growth clocking in at an anemic rate at the end of 2012. 

Analysts expect the numbers to pick up this quarter, but a succession of revisions for the final months of last year give a bleak picture. The Commerce Department estimated Thursday that the gross domestic product, the total output of goods and services, grew at an annual rate of 0.4 percent in the October-December quarter. That was just slightly better than the previous estimate of 0.1 percent, and an estimate before that showing the economy actually contracted in that period. 

Technically, the economy has been in recovery since 2009. But for many, it doesn't feel like it -- recent public opinion surveys reflect the dour mood several years after the last recession's end. 

A Pew Research Center survey earlier this month found 33 percent reporting that they hear "mostly bad news" about the economy, with just 7 percent saying they hear good news. Fifty-eight percent said it was "mixed." 

On the job front, the public mood was worse. Roughly 45 percent said they were hearing mostly bad news, while just 15 percent said they heard mostly good news. 

The bright spots at the moment appear to be in the financial markets, where the Dow is still riding a surge, and in real estate. Sales of previously occupied homes rose in February to the highest level in nearly three years, while builders broke ground on more houses and apartments. Annual home prices jumped in January by the most since June 2006, according to a closely watched measure. 

Despite the recent slack, analysts think the economy is now growing at a rate of around 2.5 percent in the current January-March quarter, which ends this week. The government will release its first look at first quarter growth on April 26. 

Steady hiring has kept consumers spending this year. And a rebound in company stockpiling, further gains in housing and more business spending also likely drove faster growth in the first quarter. 

But the 0.4 percent growth rate for the gross domestic product was the weakest quarterly performance in almost two years and followed a much faster 3.1 percent increase in the third quarter. The fourth quarter was hurt by the sharpest fall in defense spending in 40 years. 

For all of 2012, the economy grew 2.2 percent after a 1.8 percent increase in 2011 and a 2.4 percent advance in 2010. Since the recession ended in mid-2009, the economy has been expanding at sub-par rates as a string of problems from higher gas prices to Europe's debt crisis have acted as a drag on the U.S. economy. 

The economy continues to face headwinds. Though lawmakers averted the full brunt of the so-called fiscal cliff at the beginning of the year -- which would have been the double-blow of sweeping tax hikes and automatic spending cuts -- some of those provisions ended up going into effect eventually. 

A payroll tax cut ended at the beginning of 2013, and taxes rose for some top earners. Then the automatic spending cuts known as sequester took effect on March 1 despite last-minute attempts to avert them. 

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the combination of tax increases and spending cuts could trim economic growth this year by about 1.5 percentage points. The CBO is predicting just 1.5 percent growth for 2013. 

Employers have still added an average of 200,000 jobs a month since November. That helped lower the unemployment rate in February to 7.7 percent, a four-year low. 

But weekly numbers released Thursday showed the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits jumped by 16,000 last week, the second straight weekly increase. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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