Kim Kardashian Eating Her Own Placenta to Avoid Postpartum Depression: ‘What Do I Have To Lose?’ Reality Star Says

Kim Kardashian has never been one to shy away from discussing the not-so-glamorous parts of pregnancy and that hasn’t changed since her second child, Saint West, was born.

My experience eating my placenta is up on my app! https://t.co/0aC3YXxIgv pic.twitter.com/xcCEtVCvzb

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) December 14, 2015

The Keeping Up with the Kardashians star recently disclosed to her fans, via her app, that she was consuming the placenta after the birth of her son, E! Online reports. But she has a good reason for doing it: avoiding post-partum depression.

“So, I’m really not this holistic person or someone who would have ever considered eating my placenta. I actually thought Kourtney would have soooo done this, but I don’t think she did,” Kim wrote in her blog post.

Kim may have forgotten, but her sister Kourtney Kardashian also chose to eat her placenta after the birth of her son, Reign. And, just like Kim, she took it in the form of pills.

“And when I say ‘eat my placenta,’ I mean that I’m having it freeze-dried and made into a pill form—not actually fry it like a steak and eat it (which some people do, BTW).”

The placenta is a temporary organ that develops after a woman conceives. It delivers essential nutrients and oxygen to the baby from the mother. It’s pancake-shaped, grows inside the uterus, and is connected to the baby via the umbilical cord. According to AmericanPregnancy.org, the placenta generates pregnancy-related hormones like chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), estrogen, and progesterone.

And Kim is right. Although dehydrating it and turning it into pills is one way to consume the placenta, according to WebMD, you can also eat it raw or add it to your stir fry if you so desire. In fact, most non-human mammals chomp down on their placentas after birth. In dogs, it’s believed to help the mother bond with her newborns and ease labor pains.

“I really didn’t want the baby blues and thought I can’t go wrong with taking a pill made of my own hormones—made by me, for me. I started researching and read about so many moms who felt this same way and said the overall healing process was so much easier,” Kim said in her blog post.

Kim and Kourtney Kardashian aren’t the only celebrity moms who have publicly admitted eating the placenta after the birth of their children. According to E! Online, January Jones and Kim Zolciak have also done it.

“Whenever I felt down, I would take a placenta vitamin and feel better,” January Jones said in an interview with Marie Claire UK earlier this year. “I didn’t have a fork and knife and eat it like a steak, I took it with my vitamin C and B12. I don’t know if they were a placebo, but they made me feel better. People act like I’m doing some kind of witchcraft.”

This also isn’t the first time that Kim Kardashian has consumed her placenta. She did so after she gave birth to her first child, North West.

“I heard so many stories when I was pregnant with North of moms who never ate their placenta with their first baby and then had postpartum depression,” she explained. “But then when they took the pills with their second baby, they did not suffer from depression! So I thought, why not try it? What do I have to lose?”

My experience eating my placenta is up on my app! https://t.co/0aC3YXxIgv pic.twitter.com/xcCEtVCvzb

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) December 14, 2015

It seems that the only thing that Kim Kardashian has lost since the birth of her son on December 5 is weight. The reality star, during a live broadcast on her app where she cooked alongside Caitlyn Jenner and Giuliana Rancic, revealed that she had lost 17 pounds since she had Saint, Us Weekly reports. She credited her rapid post-partum weight loss to breastfeeding and dietary supplements.

Kim said that she gained 60 pounds while she was pregnant with her son, revealing that she weighed 130 at the beginning of her pregnancy and 190 when it was time to bring Saint West into the world.

“I almost died,” Kim said.

[Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images]