January Jones is eating her own placenta, in convenient vitamin pill form

As some of you know because you follow me on Twitter (seriously, follow me – I link to lots of hot photos of dudes), I came to recent realization that baby Xander had really softened January Jones. Before her pregnancy (which we still have no idea as to the father), January was known for her ice-cold vanilla bitchery, and copping major ‘tude in interview after interview. But as January promotes the new season of Mad Men, she seems… softer, somehow. Nicer. I linked to her Vanity Fair interview (which you can read here) – it’s a really nice piece. And now this – January talked babies and placenta pills with People Magazine:

January Jones plays TV’s iciest mom on Mad Men, but she and Betty aren’t alike in their mothering techniques.

“I think my fans make cracks about it, but they don’t actually think I’d bring any of Betty’s parenting into my own life,” she told PEOPLE during the show’s press junket Tuesday. “What’s nice is that the expectations for my parenting is very low, so I can really only exceed the expectations.”

Fans need not set the bar too low, though. Jones, 34, was back to work almost right after she gave birth to her son Xander Dane last September. “I think I went back to set six or seven weeks after, so he was really little,” she says.

Jones was determined to spend time with her son, even during long days on set. “I had the baby and the baby nurse in their own room so I could go back and feed him every two hours,” the first-time mom recalls. “If I felt like he needed me, or if he needed to eat, or even if I just needed a squeeze because I was having separation issues, I would go back and see him. It was such a blessing that I wasn’t separated from him.”

Jones tells PEOPLE that the biggest challenge of being a mom on set was the exhaustion.

“It was hard to work long days and then go home and not sleep,” says the actress. “It’s getting harder, not easier, so I’m a little concerned!”

Jones’s secret to staying high energy through the grueling shooting schedule? “I have a great doula who makes sure I’m eating well, with vitamins and teas, and with placenta capsulation.”

You read right: Jones is eating her own placenta. “Your placenta gets dehydrated and made into vitamins,” she explains. “It’s something I was very hesitant about, but we’re the only mammals who don’t ingest our own placentas.”

Jones has taken the capsules every day since right after she had her son, and also anytime she feels tired or down. Jones insists, “It’s not witch-crafty or anything! I suggest it to all moms!”

[From People]

First, I love this statement: “What’s nice is that the expectations for my parenting is very low, so I can really only exceed the expectations.” At least January is self-aware enough to know that everyone thinks she’s an icy bitch, eh? And it does sound like she’s being a good mom, I think. As for the placenta pills… I don’t think it’s that weird or gross, and you know how sensitive my gag reflex is. I think I’m not grossed out because I can pretty much swallow anything in pill form – and the idea of freeze-drying and then encapsulating your placenta just seems kind of cool/weird/awesome.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

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54 Responses to “January Jones is eating her own placenta, in convenient vitamin pill form”

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  1. Jackie says:

    placenta pills??? i find this woman goes out of her way to be unlikeable.

  2. Cherry says:

    Of course she is.

  3. Rita says:

    I like my placenta fried in butter with garlic and onions. A glass of chilled White Zinfandel compliments the experience nicely….maybe I’m thinking of egg plant.

  4. gloaming says:

    I’ve seen people fry it off and offer it around at a naming ceremony, it’s supposed to taste like liver.
    I have a strong stomach and I’ll try anything once but I draw the line at placenta.

    • jc126 says:

      Good grief. That’s cannibalism, seriously. (Wait, is it still cannibalism if the person whose body produced the flesh isn’t dead? Either way, absolutely repellent.)

  5. Cathy says:

    Just the sound of that turns my stomach. I suppose whatever makes you happy. Ewwww.

  6. Poppy says:

    I don’t understand her appeal. She’s average looking in the Hollywood sense, she’s a terrible actress (X-Men First Class: although I guess she looks fine in underwear since that is mostly what she wore), and she’s overall not a nice person. Good luck to her being a parent, but she’s boring.

  7. Alecsma says:

    She has such a fantastic body. I just wished she dressed it better. What is with those pants in the first photo?

  8. Marjalane says:

    Stuff like this makes me think people are just doing it for the attention factor. Besides, once you dehydrate something like that, I’m sure most of the (questionable anyway) nutrients are gone. She probably had some woo-woo new age mid wife who saw a chance to make some $$$

  9. Franny says:

    seriously, wtf is she wearing in that first picture? It looks like she went through a major growth spurt and is still wearing her old pants. Its giving me uncomfortable flashbacks to 5th grade.

  10. Jilly Bean says:

    i totally would have done it if there was a place around that prepared placentas!

  11. UKHels says:

    nice jack-ups love!

  12. Courtney says:

    oh please this isn’t abnormal at all people in some countries have done it for centuries. Ms Jones is nothing to write home about in the looks department nor can she act stop paying attention to her

  13. bea says:

    she seems like the type that would eat her young (and not just the placenta)…

  14. whatthehell456 says:

    I’m not even sure that’s completely legal? Isn’t there a law against consuming human flesh/organs? Freeze dried or not……

    • FrowninPabloDread says:

      Technically, her body made it. If eating your own placenta should be illegal then eating your own boogies should be too. Accident boogie swallowing is normal. Placenta pills are hardly organs.

      Good Grief on the cannibalism comment.

      She’s right all the other mammals do this. Not doing it is more unnatural.

      • whatthehell456 says:

        All other mammals poop outside too, doesn’t mean I’m gonna give up my toilet.

  15. cupidityrox says:

    I vote GROSS!
    This is her trying to sound edgy & cool
    I bet goop just hurled her weave into her wood burning oven because she didn’t come up with this first.. Prepare for a terse newsletter from goop displaying her displeasure with new moms who take their newborns into the work environment

  16. jess says:

    I have hippie relatives who have fried and eaten the placenta after mirror, so taking it in vitamin form doesn’t seem too bad. But I agree about the pants and shoes – they’re awful.

  17. SW says:

    I did placenta encapsulation. It helps with hormone levels, post-partim depression, energy, iron levels and many other things. It’s actually becoming quite popular! I have a friend who does the dehydrating and pilling. I would recommend it to any mom.

    • Lucy says:

      I’m doing it as a means to help me to produce more milk – with my first baby I had to supplement with formula and by the time I’d heard about the benefits of consuming your placenta, mine was long gone. With my second baby I sent the placenta to be dehydrated and encapsulated and I take two capsules daily, anyway, I can’t keep up with my milk production now!! I’ve been feeding as well as expressing and freezing so my husband can do the night shift every few evenings. It’s been amazing to see the difference.

  18. Diana says:

    I really don’t get the hatred for this woman. It’s really kinda refreshing to see someone like her in Hollyweird, among those zillion plain janes and the so called girl-next-door types.
    Team January! Bitch away 😀

    P.S. Looooove the last outfit!

  19. Shelly says:

    January doesn’t bug me at all. If she wants to eat her own placenta, then I could care less. My husband was just saying this to me the other day – that I should eat mine after I have a baby, since it is “supposedly” good for you. I about gagged. But to each their own. She’s not the first to do it. But what is up with those jeans in that first picture?

  20. judyjudy says:

    Encapsulating placenta isn’t all that weird or uncommon. It’s really helpful when it comes to postpartum depression.

  21. ImpC says:

    Hey I clicked on your twitter thing and it didn’t load your account =/ I’d like to follow you!

  22. Ally says:

    Animals eat the placenta so predators don’t smell the blood and other fluids and come eat mother & baby. Did January lick the baby clean after the birth, too?

    This is so daft it will come up in every interview she does from now on. Instead of “the ice queen”, she will be “the placenta eater”.

    • Pia says:

      LOL so eating the placenta removes the smell of all the blood and fluids that spilled on the ground too? It is for nutrition.

  23. hopperlea says:

    I did my own palcenta pills. Very easy to do, but the only downside is that while your placenta is cooking, which takes forever, your house smells like a liver and stays that way for a few days. But,it is good for you and worth it. Just buy a good air fresher.

  24. sup says:

    oooooh how edgy! that’s gross ffs

  25. Sugar says:

    she should recommend it to all mothers to be-it’s a bit late for me my kids in their 20’s but I asked myself that question would i if way back in 84-86 that would have been known to me. I thought I was all hip just carrying my LL guide to nursing mother yup come hell high water & teething I was commited!
    I do have a few co workers expecting & I’m the kooky one @ work so I’ll mention it . They will
    think that girls smarter than I thought or that girl
    says the weirdest stuff-either way

  26. Pia says:

    If the placenta is encapsulated, why bother cooking/dehydrating it? I imagine you’d get the full benefit of the nutrition if it was consumed raw, the way other mammals do it. If properly handled it shouldn’t make you sick to eat it raw. I feel like if it’s already in a pill you can’t taste, then why not?
    Though I wouldn’t go as far to say humans are the ONLY mammals that don’t eat it. I’ve witnessed many horses and cows give birth and I have never seen any of them try to eat it, though maybe it’s different in the wild.

    • Pia says:

      Also, I find it interesting how many women out there who have raised children, with all the projectile poop/vomiting, can be grossed out by so many other natural things like placenta or a dog turd on the sidewalk.

  27. rosmarina says:

    With my first child, I considered this step, since it had been mentioned by my doula. I asked my midwife about any medical research into it, and there’s very little. What there is shows no benefit. And I do wonder whether the nutrients the placenta is supposed to have are degraded by the boiling and dehydration processes. Then again, it’s not been shown to do any harm either, unless you’ve got some type of communicable diseases (HIV or hepatitis, etc.), because the placenta filters the maternal blood supplied to the baby.

    Then there’s the cost – easily $200-300 where I live. We were also in the process of moving, and figured that with no proven benefits, we’d be better off saving that money for other things.

  28. Jenna says:

    Eat my own placenta? No thanks. As for January, I just get a really big “meh” about her.

  29. Amanda says:

    I hope their referring to her BABY’S placenta. Her own placenta must be over 30 years old!

  30. Shamozzle says:

    I love Ms JJ. She’s happy with who she is and doesnt have the dysfunctional hollywood need to be liked.

    Her side eyes give a perpetual FU to the world. Love it.

  31. marge says:

    so, she eats her her own placenta (not a problem for me) but she cannot find a decent looking pair of jeans… or dress herself at all for that matter.

  32. kris says:

    this is actually a very popular thing to do outside of the US and is a great way to avoid the baby blues because you are putting your own hormones back into you! even well after you need them, woman use the pills for PMS and menopause(instead of hormone replacement because its YOUR tailor made hormones).
    i will totally do this when i have children.

  33. Maya says:

    I’m just waiting for the day when some guru announces that it’s great to eat your own poo – only because I want to see the celebrities foolishly jump on that.
    I really would like to see the empirical evidence for this fad; are their clinical trials? Are the trials based on blind studies?

    • The Bobster says:

      Members of some Hindu sects drink their own piss, too, but I’ll pass on the piss.

  34. Samigirl says:

    I’m really considering doing this. It costs about $250 to get your placenta encapsulated, and studies have shown it helps with Post Partum Depression and milk supply, both of which I dealt with after my son was born.

  35. Daphne says:

    It’s not weird. It’s something that a lot of mothers are turning to, especially ones that have experienced extreme post-partum depression in the past. Your placenta has been storing much needed hormones throughout your pregnancy, and those nutrients and hormones are supposed to help you regain your balance after giving birth. I’m totally going to do it after my next pregnancy. And it’s not like you have to make a lasagna out of it. The capsules are made by a professional, and it only costs a couple of hundred bucks to have someone do it. After my first experience, I’ll try anything to avoid feeling that way again.

    • Moi says:

      I’m a nurse and you are exactly right. This isn’t so rare in other countries. Instead of getting the sudden drop in hormones, your hormones drop slower, balancing out everything AND you get iron from it (to help replenish red blood cells lost during childbirth).

      Eating it would be repulsive to me, but the pill form would be fine.