What's the Deal with Your Dog Eating Placentas? A Breeder's Guide to the Whelping Box's Strangest Snack

Quick Answer: Most dams will eat at least a few placentas during whelping. There are real benefits, real downsides, and the question of how many matters a lot more than whether she eats any at all.

The placenta section of my embryology course sent me down a rabbit hole of human placenta recipes. Yes, those exist. One is genuinely called placenta polenta. My family ran with that for months, and nobody in the house would touch the actual dish until the joke wore off.

That whole course was my favorite one to build, and the placenta section is part of why. There's real science here, real practical guidance, and a topic weird enough that I'm going to make a few more jokes before we're done.

Why does your dog eat placentas in the first place?

Almost every land mammal does it. Eating placenta (the scientific word is "placentophagia") is a behavior shared by nearly all land-living placental mammals, including herbivores who otherwise never touch meat. Horses, cattle, goats, deer, primates, rats. They all do it. So do dogs.

The exceptions are short and interesting:

• Humans

• Camelids, meaning camels, llamas, and alpacas, though the evidence here is weaker than people often claim

• Marine mammals like whales, dolphins, seals, and sea lions

The marine mammal exception is worth a second look. For whales and dolphins, both mother and newborn have to surface to breathe right after birth. The dam's whole focus is getting her calf to the surface for its first breath. There's no chance to manage a placenta in open water, and any expelled tissue drifts away.

Seals and sea lions often give birth on land but don't engage in placentophagia either, likely an inheritance from their water-birthing ancestors.

Humans are the strange ones, not your dam. And there's a thriving subculture of women who've decided to opt back in. They dry placentas into pills, blend them into smoothies, even share recipes, like the now infamous (in my house at least) placenta polenta.

Most other mammals never gave up the practice, so the modern human placenta movement is essentially humans rejoining a club their ancestors quit.

Why does the behavior exist at all? The leading theories:

• Predator avoidance, by getting rid of the smell at the birth site

• Nutrition, since it's a high-protein, mineral-rich meal at a moment when she can't go hunt

• Hormonal and pain relief effects (more on this in a minute)

• Maternal bonding cues from the smell and taste of birth fluids

It's probably all of these working together. Evolution rarely settles on one reason for a behavior this widespread.

What does the science actually say?

Here's where things get interesting. Most of the rigorous research on this question traces back to one person: Mark Kristal at the University at Buffalo, who's spent more than 40 years studying why mammals do this.

In 1986, Kristal discovered a substance in placenta and amniotic fluid that he named POEF, for Placental Opioid-Enhancing Factor. POEF doesn't relieve pain on its own. What it does is boost the pain relief the dam's body is already producing.

During labor, every mammal's brain releases natural opioids (endorphins and similar molecules) to help cope with the pain. POEF takes that natural pain relief and amplifies it.

A few things worth knowing about POEF:

• It's present in both placenta and amniotic fluid. That's why dams start licking up fluids during delivery, not just eating placentas afterward. The pain relief starts before the first puppy is even out.

• The effect window is short. In rats, the boost lasts roughly 40 minutes per dose, which happens to match up nicely with how far apart puppies are typically born. Each placenta gives her another round of pain relief in time for the next contraction.

• It works in both sexes. POEF isn't a pregnancy hormone. It's a general opioid booster that has been tested in male rats too.

• POEF activity has been confirmed in human and dolphin placentas, not just in rats. The mechanism appears to be conserved across mammals.

This is the strongest single piece of science we have on placenta consumption, and it's a good one.

If you want to go deeper on the embryology behind any of this, the placenta section of my embryology course is actually free to preview. The whole course was the most fun I've had building anything for Midwoofery, partly because the placenta is such a wild organ (your dam grows an entire organ for each puppy, uses it for two months, and then eats it) and partly because, well, polenta.

A second well-documented benefit is maternal bonding. A 1997 study by Abitbol specifically in dogs found that amniotic fluid plays a major role in how a dam recognizes and accepts her newborns.

In the study, dams whose puppies were triple-washed and whose placentas were removed rejected the puppies for 36 hours straight. When researchers rubbed the puppies with saved placentas and amniotic fluid, the dams immediately accepted them.

The smell and taste of birth fluids are how she identifies "my puppies" versus "some random pups." This becomes really important if she ends up needing a c-section.

You'll also see claims that placenta consumption helps milk come in and uterine contraction because of oxytocin content. There's some truth to the idea that placenta contains hormones, but the mechanism by which eating it would deliver those hormones in functional amounts isn't as well-demonstrated as POEF.

I'd treat the milk-letdown and uterine-contraction claims as plausible but less proven than the pain relief story. If you want to go deep on how milk supply actually works (and what reliably affects it), I cover that in my weaning course.

What about the downsides?

This is where the conventional vet position lives. Dr. Margaret Root Kustritz, a board-certified theriogenologist (the vet specialty for reproduction), generally recommends removing placentas as they come out.

Her reasoning is straightforward. Eating placentas can cause stomach and intestinal upset, with vomiting and significant diarrhea, and there's no compelling physiologic reason a domesticated dam needs to eat them.

It's worth noting that this position has been the conventional vet recommendation for many years, and to my knowledge there isn't a contingent of theriogenologists publicly pushing back on it within the specialty.

The pushback comes from elsewhere. The POEF research camp on the basic science side, and breeder practice on the practical side.

Kustritz's framing largely predates the modern POEF literature and doesn't really engage with the pain relief story I just walked you through. That doesn't make her wrong about the GI-risk part. It just means her "no good physiologic reason" framing may be due for an update.

The classic breeder text on this is Ann Seranne's The Joy of Breeding Your Own Show Dog, which describes placenta as "highly laxative." Her rule of thumb was that a small dog eating more than two placentas was asking for trouble.

The risks worth being aware of:

• GI upset. Loose stool and sometimes vomiting, especially with large litters.

• Maternal cannibalism risk. A dam who's eating placentas with enthusiasm can occasionally chew too close to the puppy and cause umbilical trauma. This is rare but real, and it's why a lot of breeders prefer to manage the cord themselves. If you're in the moment and not sure whether what you're seeing is normal eager grooming or a real risk to the puppy, my Whelping Companion AI is built to help you think through exactly these calls in real time.

• Counting trouble. Placentas can be eaten in a single lick, passed during a potty break, or disintegrated into chunks that come out looking like regular discharge. Counting them all is genuinely difficult.

So the conventional position isn't crazy. It's responding to real problems. But is that the whole story?

Is loose stool actually the problem we've been treating it as?

Here's something I've come to think about differently than the conventional advice.

Ask any woman who's given birth about her first bowel movement after delivery. She will remember it. She'll probably describe it in vivid and not-very-cheerful terms.

The perineum is sore. The tissues are stretched and bruised. Passing a normal stool after that is genuinely painful, sometimes for days.

Now think about your dam. She just delivered a litter. Six puppies, eight puppies, sometimes more. Her body has done what a human body does for one baby, multiple times in a single night.

And then she has to keep passing stool for the next several days while everything heals.

I think there's a reasonable case to be made that softer stool in the first day or two after whelping is adaptive, not a side effect to be managed away. It would make passing stool less painful at exactly the moment when the dam needs to be focused on her puppies and not bracing for the next trip outside.

I want to be clear: this is my reasoning, not something the published literature has tested. There's no study comparing recovery in dams who ate placentas versus dams who didn't. But it's worth holding the question in your head when you read advice that treats post-whelping loose stool as straightforwardly bad. It might be a feature, not a bug.

Where I'd draw the line. Any sign of dehydration, lethargy that goes beyond the normal exhaustion of having just given birth, stool that's actually watery rather than just soft, or symptoms that last more than 24 to 48 hours. Those are real problems. A few soft, dark stools in the first day are probably doing her a favor.

What about counting placentas, and what about retained placentas?

This connects to an important point. A lot of the advice about counting placentas assumes that missing a count means something terrible will happen. The reality is more nuanced, and I've written about it at length here: Retained placentas in dogs.

The short version. Placentas can be eaten in a single lick, expelled during a potty break, or disintegrated into pieces that just look like ordinary discharge. Not seeing them all doesn't mean she's retaining one, and seeing them all doesn't guarantee she isn't at risk for infection.

What matters more than counting is monitoring her afterward: temperature, appetite, energy, how she's caring for the puppies, and the smell and color of her discharge. Continued straining and restlessness after she's done whelping is the best single sign of an actual retained placenta. If you see those signs, talk to your repro vet.

What if she has a c-section?

Save the placentas. Ask your vet ahead of time, and remind them again when you arrive. Most vets are happy to do it if they know it matters to you. Bring a clean container or a zip-top bag. A small cooler with an ice pack is ideal so they stay cold on the way home.

Here's what to do with them.

Storage. If you'll use them within 24 hours, the refrigerator is fine. Wrap each placenta in a clean paper towel, put them in a sealed container or freezer bag, and label it so nobody in your house mistakes them for dinner. If you might need them later (some dams take a few days to fully accept the litter), freeze them. They keep for several months frozen.

Warming. Before using one, thaw it in the refrigerator overnight, or speed it up by sitting the sealed bag in lukewarm water. Don't microwave. You want it at roughly body temperature when you rub it on the puppies. Cold tissue won't release scent the same way.

Rubbing them on the puppies. This is the real reason to save them. A dam coming out of anesthesia is at higher risk of rejecting her litter because she missed the whole delivery. The licking, the smells, the cues that tell her brain "these are mine." Rubbing each puppy with placenta and amniotic fluid gives her those cues back.

Focus on the head and face first, since that's where she'll sniff as she comes to. Then the body. The whole puppy should smell like birth fluids when you place her near her dam.

It also helps to ask your vet to save fluid-soaked towels from the delivery room and tuck those in the whelping box. Keep the scent around her for the first day or two.

Should the dam eat them? Maybe one or two if she's alert and showing interest in food. The POEF pain relief window is essentially closed by the time she's awake from anesthesia, and she's coming off surgery, which means her gut isn't in great shape for a heavy meal of organ tissue.

The bonding application is the real reason to save them. The eating is optional.

So how should you actually handle placentas during a vaginal whelping?

My general approach:

• Let her eat some during the whelp, but space them out. The POEF benefit lasts about 40 minutes per placenta. I'll often let her eat every other or every third placenta during a long whelp, which spreads the pain relief more evenly across the whole delivery rather than front-loading it with the first two or three.

• For very large litters (say, eight or more), keep pulling extras after she's gotten three or four. Either dispose of them or set them aside in case she has trouble accepting a puppy later and you need the bonding cue.

• Don't fight her instinct. If she's determined to eat them, trying to pull every one will stress her out and possibly disrupt labor. Let her have some, then start managing.

• Watch her stool over the next 24 to 48 hours. Soft is fine. Watery is not.

When should you step in?

These are the signs that something's gone past normal post-whelping and into "she needs attention:"

• Persistent vomiting, meaning more than once or twice in the first few hours

• Refusing to nurse or showing no interest in the puppies

• Lethargy that's noticeably worse than the expected exhaustion

• Watery diarrhea, or any diarrhea that continues past 48 hours

• Signs of dehydration, including tacky gums, skin that doesn't snap back, sunken eyes

• Continued straining and restlessness after she's done whelping

• Foul-smelling discharge

• Fever

Any of those, call your repro vet.

For mild diarrhea that's tipping toward the watery end but isn't accompanied by the more serious signs above, kaolin pectate is generally considered safe for nursing dams. It works by absorbing water and binding toxins to firm up stool.

Look for the actual kaolin/pectin formulation, often sold under veterinary brands like Endosorb or simply as "anti-diarrheal liquid for dogs."

Avoid products that contain bismuth subsalicylate, which are sometimes marketed under similar names.

Use it for 24 to 48 hours max, and call your vet if symptoms don't improve or if anything else from the list above shows up.

One more thing on this. Sometimes you'll just have a feeling something's off, even if you can't point to a specific sign. Experienced breeders develop real pattern recognition over many whelps. If that's you and your gut is telling you something's wrong, trust it and make the call.

If you're newer or you tend to worry about everything, anchor your judgment to the specific signs above. The list is what matters.

General anxiety isn't the same as informed intuition, and it takes some experience to know which one you're operating on. My Whelping Companion AI is built for exactly this gap. It helps you think through what you're seeing against the specific signs, so you don't have to guess which kind of feeling you're having at 3am.

FAQs

Will eating placentas help her milk come in?

Possibly, but it's not the strongest pathway. The most reliable trigger for milk letdown is having puppies nurse. Placenta contains hormones that may contribute, but the case is weaker than the case for pain relief. The weaning course covers milk dynamics in depth.

How many is too many?

Depends on the dam's size and the litter size. For a small dog, two or three is often the upper limit before GI upset becomes likely. For a larger dog, four or five may be fine. There's no hard rule. Watch her stool and her appetite.

What if she eats them all before I can count?

That's actually really common, and it's not the crisis it's sometimes made out to be. The retained placentas post I linked above goes into this in more detail. Monitor her afterward and you'll know if something's actually wrong.

Do I need to cut the umbilical cord, or will she?

She can usually handle it herself, but some dams chew too close to the puppy's belly. If you're new to this or your dam is rough, manage the cord yourself. Clamp about half an inch from the belly, cut, and tie off if needed. If you're in the middle of a whelp and not sure what to do, my Whelping Companion AI can walk you through it.

What if she's a first-time mom and doesn't seem interested in the placentas?

That's also normal. Not every dam engages with placentas, and that's fine. Don't force it.

Is there any difference between raw and cooked?

In dogs, this isn't really a question. Wild canids eat them raw, your dam will eat them raw, and there's no canine equivalent of the human placenta encapsulation industry. Stick with raw.

Want to go deeper?

The placenta section of my Embryology Course is free to preview. If you want the rest of the course, use code placentapolenta at checkout for 10% off.

References

Peer-reviewed primary research

1. Kristal MB, DiPirro JM, Thompson AC. Placentophagia in humans and nonhuman mammals: causes and consequences. Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 2012.

2. Kristal MB. Enhancement of opioid-mediated analgesia: A solution to the enigma of placentophagia. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 1991.

3. Kristal MB, Thompson AC, Abbott P, et al. Placentophagia and the Tao of POEF. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 2022.

4. Young SM, Gryder LK, Cross C, Zava D, Kimball DW, Benyshek DC. Consumption of Maternal Placenta in Humans and Nonhuman Mammals: Beneficial and Adverse Effects. Animals, 2020. PMC7765311.

5. Abitbol ML. Role of amniotic fluid in newborn acceptance and bonding in canines. Journal of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, 1997.

6. Lezama-García K, Mariti C, Mota-Rojas D, Martínez-Burnes J, Barrios-García H, Gazzano A. Maternal behaviour in domestic dogs. International Journal of Veterinary Science and Medicine, 2019.

Veterinary textbooks and authoritative practice sources

7. Johnston SD, Root Kustritz MV, Olson PNS. Canine and Feline Theriogenology. Saunders.

8. Root Kustritz MV. The Dog Breeder's Guide to Successful Breeding and Health Management.

9. The Royal Kennel Club whelping guide.

Author-credentialed popular sources

10. Martin RD (Field Museum / University of Chicago). Dining on Leftovers: Do Women Lose by Not Eating Afterbirth? Psychology Today, 2017.