Everybody's Got One

Summary

Radiolab Episode Summary: "Everybody's Got One"

Radiolab, hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser, delves deep into the enigmatic world of the placenta in their March 21, 2025 episode titled "Everybody's Got One." This episode unravels the complex relationship between the placenta, the fetus, and the mother's body, blending scientific inquiry with cultural insights to present a comprehensive exploration of this often-overlooked organ.

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1. Introducing the Placenta: More Than Just a Bridge

The episode begins with the hosts introducing the placenta as an entirely new organ that develops during pregnancy. Lulu Miller reflects on the common misconceptions surrounding pregnancy, highlighting how the placenta is central to fetal development.

Notable Quote:

Molly Webster [04:09]: "When you're pregnant, you don't just grow a baby, you grow an entirely new organ."

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2. Meet Harvey Kleiman: The Placental Scientist

Central to the narrative is Dr. Harvey Kleiman, a physician and scientist at Yale University, who has dedicated his career to studying the placenta. The episode introduces Kleiman's fascination with placental stem cells, emphasizing his groundbreaking work and the extensive placental collection he maintains.

Notable Quote:

Harvey Kleiman [05:25]: "We need another cabinet."

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3. The Placenta: An Unwelcome Invader

Delving into the science, the hosts explain that the placenta is genetically distinct from the mother, carrying DNA from both the mother and the father. This genetic difference makes the placenta immunologically foreign to the mother's body, setting the stage for a biological tug-of-war.

Notable Quote:

Harvey Kleiman [09:52]: "Exactly."

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4. Evolutionary Origins: The Viral Catalyst

The episode traces the evolutionary history of the placenta, revealing that a virus infection in an ancient mammalian ancestor led to the development of the placenta. This mutation transformed eggshells into a permeable layer within the body, facilitating a direct nutrient exchange between mother and fetus.

Notable Quote:

Molly Webster [16:11]: "A virus infected an ancient proto mammal and changed its DNA so that eventually... the eggshell transformed from a hard shell that exists outside the body to a sort of permeable layer that exists inside the body."

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5. The Biological Battle: Nutrient Scavenging vs. Maternal Survival

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to illustrating the placenta's aggressive quest for nutrients. The placenta secretes hormones like PP13 and human placental lactogen to manipulate the mother's body, ensuring a steady supply of nutrients for the growing fetus. This manipulation can lead to conditions like preeclampsia, where the mother's blood pressure becomes dangerously high.

Notable Quotes:

Harvey Kleiman [18:09]: "PP13 is blowing up the grocery store... the placenta's digging claws bust through."

Molly Webster [20:10]: "Preeclampsia is very, very scary. It's basically when the mother's blood pressure spikes so high that she can actually die."

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6. Cultural Reverence: Indigenous Practices Surrounding the Placenta

Beyond the biological aspects, the episode explores the cultural significance of the placenta in various indigenous communities. Tina Delisle, a history professor, shares insights into how native cultures view the placenta as a companion or guardian, leading to rituals like proper burial to ensure the child's protection and connection to the land.

Notable Quote:

Tina Delisle [26:25]: "In native cultures, the placenta is a friend, a companion, grandmother."

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7. Emotional Reflections: Hosts' Personal Connections

Throughout the episode, the hosts express a mix of awe and emotional response to the placenta's role. From handling a freshly delivered placenta to contemplating its journey out of the body, their reflections add a personal dimension to the scientific narrative.

Notable Quote:

Becca Bressler [25:11]: "I just wish I could meet it and thank it."

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8. Conclusion: The Placenta's Enduring Legacy

The episode concludes by emphasizing the placenta's crucial role in human reproduction and its often-overlooked contribution to fetal development. The hosts highlight the placenta's seamless exit from the body post-birth, leaving no scar—a testament to its specialized function.

Notable Quote:

Molly Webster [24:03]: "And what's kind of cool is it leaves no scar. It's like one of the only things like this in the body."

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Final Thoughts

Everybody's Got One sheds light on the placenta's intricate and often conflicting relationship with the mother's body. By intertwining scientific exploration with cultural practices, Radiolab offers listeners a profound appreciation for this vital organ, challenging preconceived notions about pregnancy and maternal-fetal connections.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Molly Webster [04:09]: "When you're pregnant, you don't just grow a baby, you grow an entirely new organ."
• Harvey Kleiman [05:25]: "We need another cabinet."
• Harvey Kleiman [09:52]: "Exactly."
• Molly Webster [16:11]: "A virus infected an ancient proto mammal and changed its DNA so that eventually... the eggshell transformed from a hard shell that exists outside the body to a sort of permeable layer that exists inside the body."
• Harvey Kleiman [18:09]: "PP13 is blowing up the grocery store... the placenta's digging claws bust through."
• Molly Webster [20:10]: "Preeclampsia is very, very scary. It's basically when the mother's blood pressure spikes so high that she can actually die."
• Tina Delisle [26:25]: "In native cultures, the placenta is a friend, a companion, grandmother."
• Becca Bressler [25:11]: "I just wish I could meet it and thank it."
• Molly Webster [24:03]: "And what's kind of cool is it leaves no scar. It's like one of the only things like this in the body."

---

This comprehensive summary encapsulates the essence of Radiolab's "Everybody's Got One," providing listeners with an in-depth understanding of the placenta's biological significance and cultural reverence.

Transcript

[Jad Abumrad]

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[Lulu Miller]

Hey, Lulu here. So, a few months back, our illustrator Jared Bartman got a difficult prompt. We asked him to design a cute tote bag based on our incredibly morbid episode, cheating death. And Jared was stumped. How do you create something plucky and cheerful and design forward about the inevitability of dying? So he brooded and he doodled, and then one day, it hit him. It is easily my favorite design ever. And because it's sort of this secret code about death, it has the effect that it's kind of like carrying Carpe Diem around on your shoulder. And you can get that tote bag right now if you become a member of the Lab. You knew it was coming. The Lab is the way we have designed to support the show. It's super easy. Just a couple clicks. You send a few bucks our way a month in exchange for, you know, public radio currency, tote bags, and other perks. Whether you support us or not, we are so grateful for you. But if you've ever been on the fence, I would say that now is a really good time. Because not only does the tote bag have a very cool surrealist design, it also has a zipper. So go take a [e-mail] join. That's Radiolab.org join. And that's all. Thank you. On with the show.

[Molly Webster]

Yeah, you're.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Wait, you're listening.

[Molly Webster]

Okay.

[Harvey Kleiman]

All right.

[Molly Webster]

Okay.

[Harvey Kleiman]

All right.

[Lulu Miller]

You are listening to Radiolab Radio from wnyc.

[Molly Webster]

Rewind.

[Lulu Miller]

Oh, my God.

[Becca Bressler]

Oh, my God.

[Lulu Miller]

It's really similar. Hey, I'm Lulu Miller.

[Molly Webster]

And I'm Molly Webster.

[Becca Bressler]

This is Radiolab, and today, it's like red velvet bread. Look at that.

[Molly Webster]

It does look like a Loaf of bread.

[Lulu Miller]

We are dredging up an episode from the archives. It's called Everybody's Got One. And I really love this story so very much.

[Molly Webster]

I hope you enjoy a round loaf.

[Lulu Miller]

Of homemade bread with veins that's purple and red.

[Molly Webster]

We have a story about a thing, but also, like blood sausage bread, a thing that we've all had at some point.

[Lulu Miller]

It is Patty like.

[Molly Webster]

But most of us, we never even knew it.

[Lulu Miller]

And it comes to us from our contributing editor, Heather Radke.

[Molly Webster]

Yeah, I'm not even on staff, and.

[Becca Bressler]

I wish you were producer Becca Bressler.

[Molly Webster]

Well, I think. I think I can take it. Okay. I was thinking about getting pregnant, and I started to. To do a bunch of research. And, you know, pregnancy is this thing, at least for me, where I was like, I know about that. You know, I took, like, 14 years of sex ed in my public high school. But I'll just say, the more I learn about it, the more I realize how little I know and maybe, like, how little anyone knows about pregnancy. And one of the very first things I discovered was that when you're pregnant, you don't just grow a baby, you grow an entirely new organ.

[Becca Bressler]

Let me turn it down.

[Molly Webster]

Your whole life, you've got your heart, your lungs, your bone, your skin, your eyes, et cetera.

[Harvey Kleiman]

So this is the main hospital.

[Molly Webster]

But then all of a sudden, during pregnancy, a whole new organ shows up.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Here is our cabinet of placentas, and.

[Molly Webster]

That organ is the placenta.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Whole placentas, pieces of placentas.

[Molly Webster]

I had heard of the placenta before, but I really didn't know anything about it.

[Harvey Kleiman]

It's called the afterbirth for a reason. It's an afterthought that no one thinks about.

[Molly Webster]

I think I thought a thing a lot of people think, which is that the baby grows inside the placenta. I definitely thought balloon baby was inside of.

[Lulu Miller]

I mean, okay, I was pregnant, and I think I thought it was just, like, extra lining on my uterus, but it's not.

[Molly Webster]

It's not even yours.

[Harvey Kleiman]

The placenta belongs to the embryo, to the fetus, to the baby.

[Molly Webster]

So it's actually grown by the fetus, which means that every single one of us has had a placenta.

[Harvey Kleiman]

I was kind of like you. I literally had no idea what it did, what its purpose was.

[Becca Bressler]

This is Harvey Harvey Kleiman. He studies the placenta, M.D.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Phd, physician, scientist at Yale University, where.

[Becca Bressler]

He has a cabinet of placentas.

[Harvey Kleiman]

We're sort of running out of room, which we visited.

[Becca Bressler]

We'll come back to that.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Kristen, I think we need another cabinet.

[Becca Bressler]

But before we do, I'm interested in.

[Molly Webster]

How you got interested in the placenta. Presumably it wasn't because you got pregnant.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Serendipity.

[Becca Bressler]

So about 40 years ago, Harvey's just gotten out of medical school, and I'm.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Now a resident at University of Pennsylvania, and I'm in a laboratory studying ovaries. And in the lab, there was somebody else who was working on the placenta, and they were chopping up the placenta and homogenizing the placenta.

[Becca Bressler]

And these other scientists in the lab ended up with this thing called a gradient, where the different kinds of cells in the placenta were sort of separated out. They can look at them independently.

[Harvey Kleiman]

And they wanted me to take a picture of the gradient. Why? Well, on the side, I'm a photographer. I've actually done bar mitzvahs and weddings and things like that. Yeah, I love visual things, I think is what interests me in general. And so I took a picture of the gradient, and I asked Jerry, who was running the lab, I said, gerry, would you mind if I looked at what they are? He said, sure, go for it.

[Becca Bressler]

And what Harvey saw was something that.

[Harvey Kleiman]

No one had ever seen before.

[Becca Bressler]

He saw these cells, sort of a bubbling cauldron of cells.

[Harvey Kleiman]

They were like amoeba.

[Becca Bressler]

Later, he'd make movies of them.

[Harvey Kleiman]

They started moving around, and then they came together. They aggregated, then the membranes broke down, and they fused to make these multinucleated giant cells.

[Becca Bressler]

They were growing very aggressively in a way that surprised him.

[Harvey Kleiman]

I said, that is super cool. What's going on here?

[Molly Webster]

Eventually, he figured out that what he was looking at were stem cells, placental stem cells. And over the next few decades, he and a bunch of other scientists would start to piece together the story of the placenta.

[Becca Bressler]

And that's the story we're going to tell you. Cool.

[Molly Webster]

Okay.

[Lulu Miller]

I'm so excited. Educate me on this organ I have had and know nothing about.

[Molly Webster]

All right, so before we start, we just want to say a note on the word mother. Not everyone who gets pregnant or has a baby identifies as a mother, but it's a word a lot of people use when talking about pregnancy, including some of our sources. And so we're using it in addition to more inclusive language like pregnant person and parent.

[Lulu Miller]

Got it.

[Harvey Kleiman]

So let's start from the beginning. You have an egg, and then if there's sperm around, the sperm will fertilize that egg.

[Molly Webster]

And then it divides.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Divides into two, and then four, eight.

[Molly Webster]

And 16, et cetera, et cetera.

[Harvey Kleiman]

By the time it gets to about.

[Molly Webster]

32, the cluster of cells sort of forms into two layers.

[Harvey Kleiman]

It's like a tennis ball.

[Molly Webster]

Now there's a little cluster of cells.

[Harvey Kleiman]

On the inside that will become the embryo, that will become the fetus, that will become the baby, those little inside group of cells, but the cells on the outside, those cells will become the placenta.

[Molly Webster]

So from the very first few days of pregnancy, these placental cells are wrapped around what's going to become the embryo like a little blanket. And as Harvey explained all this to us, and he walked us deeper into the story of the placenta, we started to see that pregnancy isn't a peaceful nursery rhyme kind of a story about a pregnant person nurturing a fetus until it becomes a cute little baby. It's actually more like a struggle and not like a calm college debate. It's like a cage match, like a knockdown, drag out boxing match or a tiny war. Maybe even on one side is the pregnant person, and on the other side is the fetus. And in the middle, or maybe not like actually in the middle, more like actually like in the corner, rubbing the shoulders of the fetus is the placenta.

[Harvey Kleiman]

So what happens?

[Becca Bressler]

Well, okay, so Harvey says the first thing you have to understand is that that tiny embryo with its little baby placenta cells wrapped around it like a blanket, it is not welcome in the mother's body.

[Harvey Kleiman]

From the mother's point of view, this is immunologically foreign.

[Becca Bressler]

You know, the pregnancy is a little bit genetically the mom, but also a little bit the dad.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Exactly.

[Becca Bressler]

Which for the mother's body is not normal.

[Harvey Kleiman]

If we took a piece of tissue from whoever the father was of a pregnancy and put it into the mother, she would reject it.

[Molly Webster]

Right, because not self shouldn't be there. Not self is a virus. Not self is a bacteria.

[Becca Bressler]

Melissa Wilson, geneticist at Arizona State.

[Molly Webster]

We need to get rid of not self.

[Harvey Kleiman]

It's a foreign invader.

[Becca Bressler]

And so if an embryo just waltzes into a uterus one day without a little placenta blanket around it, the mother's body would gather up a squad of white blood cells, send them out to find it, shred it apart, and kill it.

[Harvey Kleiman]

So that's definitely a problem.

[Molly Webster]

But before the mother's body even has a chance to attack the embryo, the placenta blanket hides it.

[Harvey Kleiman]

The placenta is going to become invisible to the mother.

[Lulu Miller]

What?

[Harvey Kleiman]

Yeah, the mother literally doesn't even see that the pregnancy is there.

[Lulu Miller]

Mom's still at the bar.

[Molly Webster]

She sure is. Okay, so for the first week or so of the pregnancy. The placenta is pretty much just hiding the embryo from the mother.

[Harvey Kleiman]

But then the next problem that the placenta faces is nutrition.

[Molly Webster]

The embryo gets hungry and the placenta is like, I gotta feed this thing. And this is when the battle lines really start to get drawn, because essentially this war between the placenta and the pregnant person is a war that's about food. The placenta, Harvey says, has one mission.

[Harvey Kleiman]

To make the biggest baby possible, to suck as much nutrients out of the.

[Molly Webster]

Mother as possible, and the pregnant person's.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Mission, not to die.

[Becca Bressler]

So the placenta is in the uterus looking around for food, and it does this thing, something kind of tricky, something that when we heard about it, actually feels like it's skipping ahead nine months. Harvey says it produces this hormone. Hcg, happens to be the hormone that activates pregnancy tests. But one of its other jobs is.

[Harvey Kleiman]

That it causes the lining of the uterus to secrete a protein that our.

[Molly Webster]

Friend Harvey likens to milk.

[Lulu Miller]

Wait, what?

[Molly Webster]

Like, no.

[Harvey Kleiman]

The vitality you get from milk lasts far longer than energy from other drinks. The lining of the uterus makes milk for the embryo. Time to get back to the refills.

[Lulu Miller]

That is wild.

[Becca Bressler]

Yeah, but this milk is like a snack for the placenta. What it really needs is blood. So at this point, about two weeks into the pregnancy, the placenta goes on the offensive. By now it's actually latched onto the side of the uterus. And at this point, the placenta forms tendrils, like long skinny claws that actually.

[Molly Webster]

Try to invade in, up through the uterus into the maternal body, into the.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Blood vessels and attack the walls to open them up.

[Molly Webster]

Like, eh, I'm gonna suck all your nutrients from you. But the uterus stops them, basically putting.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Up a brick wall, very dense tissue.

[Molly Webster]

To block those claws from getting in.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Now the placenta doesn't give up easily.

[Molly Webster]

It keeps digging, but then the uterus blocks it.

[Becca Bressler]

And what you start to see is this push and pull where the placenta keeps digging, digging, digging.

[Harvey Kleiman]

We're talking pretty aggressive here.

[Molly Webster]

And the uterus keeps blocking it, blocking, blocking it.

[Lulu Miller]

Wait, wait, wait. Can I just ask, like, what isn't this, like, isn't our whole point to carry on? Like, isn't that what evolution has built us to do? Why would this moment, where it's about to happen, be so combative?

[Molly Webster]

It's a really good question, and we will get to it after the break.

[Jad Abumrad]

Radiolab is supported by Capital One. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that Radiolab is his favorite podcast too. Ah, really? Thanks Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.combank Capital One NA member FDIC Radiolab is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail], progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

[Molly Webster]

This week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, Kaitlan Collins, the chief White House correspondent for cnn.

[Lulu Miller]

My dad will see things on Facebook.

[Harvey Kleiman]

About me and then call me to ask if it's true.

[Lulu Miller]

Sometimes it just shows you that people.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Can choose their own narratives.

[Molly Webster]

Kaitlin Collins and I'm Claire Malone.

[Lulu Miller]

Join us on the New Yorker Radio Hour from WNYC Studios. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Lulu, Molly, Heather, Becca, Radiolab Today we are telling the story of the placenta, a story which has revealed to us just how much pregnancy itself is like a war between the fetus and the parent's body. And what we were just getting around to was why?

[Molly Webster]

Right, so you all actually already answered this question on the show.

[Becca Bressler]

Oh well, this came as a total shock to me because after all, the thing.

[Molly Webster]

So basically the story we told then is that before placentas, think about fish, you think about all animals that would become mammals laid eggs. And an egg is a special little thing. It's a self contained little package where the fetus has everything it needs to eat until it's ready to hatch. And all of its waste products stay inside the egg and nothing comes in and nothing goes out until the animal is ready to leave its egg.

[Harvey Kleiman]

But then long, long ago, some ancient mammal ancestor got a virus.

[Molly Webster]

A virus infected an ancient proto mammal and changed its DNA so that eventually, many generations later, the eggshell transformed from a hard shell that exists outside the body to a sort of permeable layer that exists inside the body which then becomes the placenta. And this was a huge advantage because it made it possible for the blood of the mother to actually feed the fetus so it could get tons more nutrients. It wasn't limited to just like whatever yolk was inside the egg from the beginning. And the individual was so reproductively successful that it spread across all Eutherian Mammals geneticist Melissa Wilson. Again, that's mind blowing because it made it possible to actually make a baby with a big, giant brain like a human being or a dolphin. And that was great. But it also had this downside, this wonky interaction between the pregnant individual and the placenta, because the placenta is not the DNA of the pregnant individual. The placenta is the DNA of the offspring. Okay? And this is how we've ended up four weeks into what's basically a war between the mother and the placenta, with the placenta trying to suck blood out of the mother and the mother basically trying to box it out.

[Becca Bressler]

And this fight is just getting started. Week five goes by, then week six. Week six, week seven, the embryo's growing. Eyes, ears, bones.

[Harvey Kleiman]

It has a heart, kidneys, liver.

[Becca Bressler]

Meanwhile, the placenta is digging, digging, digging, trying to get to the blood to get this thing, more nutrients, but the placenta just can't break through.

[Harvey Kleiman]

It's just like, hey, I need to be growing. I need more nutrients for my passenger. The fetus.

[Molly Webster]

And the uterus just says, nope, get out.

[Harvey Kleiman]

But the placenta has a couple tricks.

[Becca Bressler]

Up its sleeve, Specifically one trick called PP13. It's a protein that Harvey says creates a diversion.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Here's an analogy. If we wanted to rob a bank, I don't want the police to be near there. So what I'm gonna do is blow up a grocery store, wait for all the police to sort of go around the grocery store, and while they're busy doing that, I'm gonna sneak into the bank.

[Becca Bressler]

So in the world of Harvey's analogy here, PP13 is blowing up the grocery store. The placenta produces it. It goes off to some other part of the uterus that the placenta isn't trying to invade.

[Harvey Kleiman]

And there the PP13 attracts the entire police force, SWAT team, everybody of the mother's immune system.

[Becca Bressler]

And while the whole police force is over there dealing with the PP13, the placenta's digging claws bust through.

[Harvey Kleiman]

And blood fountains into the placenta. It's bathed in all these nutrients and goes, buffet time. Let me see what I need.

[Molly Webster]

As the mother's blood starts rushing into the placenta, the fetus just starts growing and growing. It's the size of a grapefruit by week 15, a pineapple by 24, a watermelon by 36.

[Harvey Kleiman]

And that fetus is demanding more and more horsepower, more and more nutrients to actually grow.

[Molly Webster]

So the placenta starts releasing more and.

[Harvey Kleiman]

More of this hormone called human placental.

[Molly Webster]

Lactogen, which sort of hijacks the mother's.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Digestive system says, okay, you're eating, I get that, but none of that actually is for you. You're not going to get to store it. All those nutrients are going to stay in your blood. So I. The placenta can suck up those nutrients.

[Molly Webster]

And all the while, the placenta is gobbling up more and more of the mother's blood. And by the third trimester, Harvey says.

[Harvey Kleiman]

20 to 25% of all the blood flow of the mother is going into the placenta.

[Molly Webster]

And this is where things can get dangerous for the mother.

[Harvey Kleiman]

If the placenta and the fetus together say, hey, I'm not getting enough blood. I'm just going to force her body to start pumping more blood into me, into the fountaining system. And this is a condition we call preeclampsia.

[Molly Webster]

Preeclampsia is very, very scary. And it's basically when the mother's blood pressure spikes so high that she can actually die. Whoa. And it's really serious. It's one of the leading causes of maternal death. And I think it's easy to sort of think, like, high blood pressure, you know, not such a big deal, but it's actually the placenta, you know, sucking so much blood out of the mother's body that she can't continue to survive.

[Becca Bressler]

And this can also go wrong in the other direction.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Mom, of course, doesn't want to die. She doesn't want the fetus to take all her nutrients. But if she is successful and wins the battle, if you will, the placenta is too small, the fetus is too small, and the pregnancy may not survive.

[Becca Bressler]

But if neither side wins the war, then after nine months, give or take a few weeks, poof, you have a baby.

[Lulu Miller]

And poof is exactly what it feels like.

[Molly Webster]

But the placenta's still in there. And so the placenta actually also kind of has to be born. I'm getting the sense that the placenta may be underneath this blue cover.

[Becca Bressler]

Is that right?

[Harvey Kleiman]

Good guess.

[Molly Webster]

So we didn't actually see anyone give birth to a placenta, but Harvey did show us one in his lab.

[Harvey Kleiman]

All right, are we ready for the moment?

[Molly Webster]

Harvey grabs the blue cloth and he pulls it back.

[Becca Bressler]

Oh, my God.

[Harvey Kleiman]

And this. This is the placenta, which is in the standard Ziploc bag. That's what it's in right now.

[Becca Bressler]

Oh, my God.

[Molly Webster]

I mean, it looks so. It looks very organy.

[Harvey Kleiman]

It's kind of bloody, isn't it?

[Becca Bressler]

It's so bloody.

[Harvey Kleiman]

And so I'm going to open the Ziploc bag.

[Molly Webster]

Oh, My God, it's so bag. Like. It's sort of bluer than I thought.

[Becca Bressler]

It also kind of looks like raw meat, like you were making a hamburger or something.

[Molly Webster]

It is raw meat. So I'm gonna pick it up and see how heavy it is. So I grabbed the placenta. It's kind of heavy. Like what?

[Harvey Kleiman]

Like a normal term placenta is about 550 grams, which is just about a pound. It's about 8 to 9 inches in diameter.

[Molly Webster]

About as wide as a volleyball. It's really weird. It's. Okay, first of all, it's cold. Maybe sleep. Slimy is the word. And it's got a lot of texture. When you're in the beefy part, you can feel what I imagine are the veins, and it has, like. It's not all one texture. It's, like, hard in spots and soft in spots. It feels sort of like, crazy.

[Becca Bressler]

And then Harvey told us how the placenta, this little alien invader and all its thirsty veins and tendrils and hooks, how it leaves the body.

[Harvey Kleiman]

I think this is another miracle.

[Becca Bressler]

So the baby goes first, and the.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Uterus is elastic and has, you know, muscle, so it contracts down, and it's that contracting down that actually shears the placenta off the lining of the uterus and the placenta gets delivered. And then all those blood vessels that have been supplying blood to the placenta for all those weeks and months have to close down.

[Becca Bressler]

And they do, like, immediately, there's this river of blood fountaining into the placenta that just shuts off.

[Molly Webster]

And what's kind of cool is it leaves no scar. It's like one of the only things like this in the body. Maybe the only thing like this where something sort of gets sheared off and there's no, like, no mark remains. Oh, that just makes me think that.

[Lulu Miller]

While from the outside it feels like.

[Molly Webster]

Such a push and pull and like, they're competing against each other, that, like.

[Lulu Miller]

In the scarlessness, there is, like, a.

[Molly Webster]

Camaraderie and a peace of sorts.

[Becca Bressler]

Yeah. In some sense, I think of it as, like, the OG Parent for the baby. It's one mission is to help that embryo grow into a healthy fetus and deliver a baby. And it has this. It's developed this sort of, like, incredible way of somehow making sure all of its needs are met in such a selfless sort of way that I've started seeing it as the first parent.

[Molly Webster]

Yeah. I don't know. It's sort of. I feel almost like I'm gonna cry. It feels sort of like here's this thing. This was somebody's baby's life thing. I don't know.

[Lulu Miller]

But so, okay, placenta comes out, it releases, it leaves no trace. It leaves no scarlet. It knows it's time to like, let those grappling hooks go. Comes out and then what's the end of the journey?

[Becca Bressler]

I mean, I guess it goes in the garbage most of the time. I feel really sad that I can't meet mine. I think once you know all that it's done for you, I just wish I could meet it and thank it.

[Molly Webster]

Yeah.

[Harvey Kleiman]

And hold, hold it, Santa, for making me survive and be alive.

[Becca Bressler]

Put it in my closet. I don't know.

[Molly Webster]

But also, a lot of people don't throw it away.

[Tina Delisle]

Only recently are we beginning to see that scientific discourse is taking the placenta seriously.

[Molly Webster]

This is Tina delisle. She's a professor of history at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and she's writing a book about the placenta.

[Tina Delisle]

Indigenous people were understanding the placenta for a long time.

[Molly Webster]

She explained to us that this dawning we were having that the placenta is kind of like a parent. It's something that a lot of people had already been thinking about the placenta for a really long time.

[Tina Delisle]

In native cultures, the placenta is a friend, a companion, grandmother.

[Molly Webster]

And when you think about the placenta.

[Tina Delisle]

That way as a relation, they're going to treat it very differently. And that explains why throughout a lot of native cultures, the emphasis is on proper burial of the placenta.

[Becca Bressler]

Tina explained that you see this practice of burying the placenta all over the.

[Tina Delisle]

World in various African cultures, in native American culture, in Hawaii, French Polynesia, in Aotearoa, Tahiti, Vanuatu.

[Becca Bressler]

And where she's from, born and raised.

[Tina Delisle]

In Guahan in the Marianas for Chamorros.

[Becca Bressler]

The indigenous people of Guam.

[Tina Delisle]

When you bury the placenta or the gatung, it ensures that baby's safety. You know, even examples like when they're, when they're young and they're learning how to walk, it protects them so they don't fall down. It was a way of protecting children into adulthood.

[Molly Webster]

Huh. Okay, so you're saying that the placenta isn't just looking after the well being of the child when it's in the womb, but also into adulthood.

[Tina Delisle]

Yeah, but also for the well being of the land. Because when you plant the placenta, it connects people to place. The idea is that if someone moves away, they always remember my placenta is buried there and they will take care of that land.

[Becca Bressler]

Did you bury your kids placentas No.

[Tina Delisle]

I had inquired about the possibility of taking home the placenta.

[Becca Bressler]

This was 2006. Tina was living in Michigan.

[Tina Delisle]

When I was there, I was told that. And when I say there, this is when, you know, in the. In the middle of labor. And I was told that they wouldn't let me take home my baby's placenta.

[Becca Bressler]

And why is that? Like, why, why wouldn't they let you?

[Tina Delisle]

Because of the law. And I was told that I'd have to go to court to get that. It would be really difficult.

[Becca Bressler]

How did that make you feel when you heard that?

[Tina Delisle]

You know, I felt really bad about that. I had my partner, my husband, take pictures and video of the placenta. Right. I was like, okay, I need something to remember my baby's placenta with. Right.

[Molly Webster]

But things have changed some since Tina gave birth in 2006 in states like Hawaii and Texas and Oregon. Now you can legally take your baby's placenta home with you.

[Tina Delisle]

The only consolation I had really was maybe this will be different next time around for my daughters.

[Becca Bressler]

This placenta was delivered yesterday.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Monday. Actually Monday, late afternoon Monday. Yes. So there's a little cute baby someplace who is happy and alive because of this placenta.

[Becca Bressler]

We gotta send that family this podcast. I'm sure we can't know who they are. Hip bub.

[Harvey Kleiman]

We can't know who they are. That's part of the reason we have the placenta.

[Molly Webster]

But let's thank them anyway.

[Becca Bressler]

Thank you.

[Molly Webster]

More spiritual way.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Yes, we will thank them spiritual.

[Lulu Miller]

This episode was reported by Heather Radke and Becca Bressler and produced by Becca Bressler and Pat Walters with help from from Matt Kilty and Maria Paz Gutierrez. Special thanks to Diana Bianchi, Julia Katz, Sam Bajati, Celia Bardwell Jones and Hannah Ingraham. Special thanks also to my placenta for getting me here. Thanks thanks to the placentas of all the people who made this program. Thanks for building such talented humans. And finally to the placenta that made you listener. Thanks for making such a darky human who likes our program. Really appreciate it.

[Molly Webster]

Hi, I'm Parisha and I'm from Ottawa, Canada and here are the staff credits. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nyana Sambandam, Matt Kielty, Annie McKeown, Alex Neeson, Sara Khari Sarah Sandbach, Anisa Vitsa, Arian Wack, Pat Wolters, and Molly Webster. Our fact trackers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Natalie Middleton.

[Harvey Kleiman]

Hi, this is Evan. I'm calling from Menlo Park, California. Leadership support for Radiolab science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Science Sandbox, a Simons foundation initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation.

[Becca Bressler]

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[Harvey Kleiman]

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[Becca Bressler]

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