Consumption of Maternal Placenta in Humans and Nonhuman Mammals: Beneficial and Adverse Effects.

Placentophagia is a common mammalian behavior, and the first scientific study of the potential effects of human maternal placentophagia on lactation was in 1917. More recently, in the 1970s, human placentophagia was reported in North America with a trend toward increased consumption. There are different hypotheses about the women and nonhuman mammals' motivation towards placentophagia, but few have been subject to hypotheses testing.

Repeated direct fetal intravascular high-dose immunoglobulin therapy for the treatment of Rh hemolytic disease.

Recently, administration of high-dose intravenous immunoglobulin (HDivIG) either to the mother or the neonate has been proposed in an effort to prevent progressive hemolysis in Rh(D) perinatal disease, but no cases have been published with direct fetal HDivIG administration. We report a case in which HDivIG was repeatedly administered by cordocentesis to a fetus affected by Rh(D) disease from 28 to 36 weeks gestation, at doses of approximately 450 mg/kg. The fetus required no transfusions, and the neonatal evolution was satisfactory.

[Intracranial hemorrhage in hemophiliacs. Study of 10 episodes].

The intracranial haemorrhages presented within a group of 64 haemophiliacs along 25 years were revised. During this period, 10 such episodes were seen in 8 patients with haemophilia A; six of them appeared in children under 10 years of age. In five instances there were traumatic antecedents, whereas in the remaining five the haemorrhage was spontaneous, no vascular abnormalities being demonstrated in these last.