Baby placenta facial treatments offered

Beauty conscious women in Dubai are being targeted by a controversial product claimed to make them look younger made from newborn baby placenta.

British therapist Mona Mirza says new customers walk through the doors of her Dubai clinic almost every day, as word spreads of the new procedure.

"The main reason why human placenta is effective is because it is bio-identical to our own physiology," she said.

"Your own collagen starts to mimic the baby collagen and cells that are going in."

And while adult skin will continue mimicking the placenta cells for about three months, the treatment is not cheap. A 60-minute session costs around £170 ($307).

Placenta treatments are not new, however. Some European clinics already use sheep or horse placenta in their treatments, but the placenta serum used in Mirza's facials is made by a American manufacturer who claims the afterbirth is farmed from Russian babies and given voluntarily.

Simon Cowell, Victoria Beckham and Jennifer Lopez are among celebrities reported to use placenta treatments in their beauty regimes.

Ms Mirza advises women over the age of 35 to have their first three treatments in the space of a week, followed by one treatment a month.

But sceptics say there is no scientific evidence to support claims that the procedure works.

via Baby placenta facial treatments offered | News.com.au.

I guess placenta facials sound better than people eating placentas, which they do for similar reasons:

Dr. Peter Chew, a consultant OB/GYN at Gleneagles Hospital, Singapore, didn’t think that it worked, but also didn’t see any harm in eating human placenta:

A placenta is an organ rich in blood vessels that develops in female mammals during pregnancy. It lines the uterine wall and partially envelopes the foetus, to which it is attached by the umbilical cord. At full-term, it is about 18cm long and 5cm thick. It is expelled during child birth, forming part of the afterbirth.

Its function is to transfer oxygen and nutrients from the mother to the foetus. It also releases carbon dioxide and waste from the foetus through the umbilical cord to be disposed of by the mother.

Dr Peter Chew, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Gleneagles Hospital, says that though people have been talking about "frying, drying and eating placentas" for years, his patients rarely ask to keep theirs.

He says: "Placentas are full of hormones, so theoretically, they should improve the complexion, even though there’s no medical evidence to support this."

As for the possibility of dangerous side effects from consuming it, he says "there’s no harm, seeing it’s your own body’s organ". But to be on the safe side, he recommends cooking the placenta before consumption. - neatorama