Well, after I my sister gave birth, she granted me the request of taking her placenta. I was determined to lovingly preserve this miraculous organ. I took it and met up with a friend at a bar. The placenta earned me a free beer. We refrigerated the placenta and I diligently tried to learn how to preserve it. My bandmate Aesop, from Ludicra, had done this before, though rather crudely. I intended to do the best job I could. The internet and phone calls to some strange shops were my main source of information. It took some time, but I eventually pieced together the best way for a layperson to engage in specimen preservation. So others don’t have the difficulty I did, I now present this fully illustrated article on how to preserve your sister’s placenta.
1. Gather the following… a specimen jar, latex gloves, petroleum jelly, some music, five bottles of Everclear grain alcohol (at least 75 ure), and your sister’s placenta.
2. Put on your favorite CD, which is of course Impaled’s Death After Life.
3. Drink some beer.
4. Get your gloves on. This may be your sister, but it’s still… Medical Waste.
5. Dump the Everclear into the specimen jar. You see, in the absence of formalin, which you need a license to get, pure grain alcohol is the best preservative available. Any preservative should be around 70 ure grain alcohol, and Everclear is 75àEasy, peasy, nice and squeezy.
6. Drink some Everclear.
7. Open up the placenta container. Hopefully, the hospital gives you a nice container, instead of a lasagna tray.
8. Dump out the blood. Don’t think about where it came from.
9. Remove the placenta from the container.
10. Wash off the excess blood clots and goop. Be careful, this is just a thin membrane… and don’t lose that umbilical cord down the sink!
11. Carefully place the placenta in the specimen jar.
12. Sweet!
13. Rub petroleum jelly around the lid of the jar. This will act as a sealant for the lid so the alcohol doesn’t evaporate.
14. Cool! You’ve got a piece of a human in a jar. At this point you could call your sister and thank her.
15. Finally… be sure to keep it away from your dog.
I hope this helps anyone who is looking to preserve their sister’s placenta, though these basic directions can be used to preserve any number of things, like mice, octopi, pig hearts… whatever your sick, little heart fancies! Happy bottling.
Hey buddy, how long will the placenta stay good in the alcohol? I want to do this.
11 years later, it's still preserved. There's been some evaporation, but not much. I would suggest redoing the alcohol after maybe 5 years… it's very yellowed now, and redoing the preserve would probably help a lot with that. I would also suggest using a wire frame or fishing line to frame or suspend the organ so it doesn't just crumple to the bottom of the jar. I should've done that, and might still.
That’s a good idea with the wire. I filled the jar alcohol used petroleum jelly and then sealed the top on with silicone. It looks awesome.
I’m trying to do the same but with fomaldehyde. What dimensions is your jar and how much preservative did you have to use?
The jar I got was too big, really… probably held about 1.5-2 gallons. Five bottles of 750ml Everclear filled it up a bit more than half of it. If you can get formaldehyde, awesome, but Everclear was easier to get for me, a normal consumer. Side not, it’s still preserved, though some of the Everclear has evaporated. I blame moving and having to jostle the jar. I need to reseal it.
Any suggestions on how to suspend it without tearing it? I have my assistants and it’s currently frozen. I know I’ll have to thaw it but the person who was supposed to do it for me has fallen through
I’ve heard of some people shaping a wire hangar as a display and draping it over that.