alicia silverstone

Placenta eating moms, mouth-to-mouth feeding moms, diaper free kids, free range kids… are we going too far with parenting?

I’m the type of person who honestly thinks – to each their own.

When my babies were little, I guess you could put me in the category of attachment parenting (although I’m not a fan of labels). Breastfeeding, co-sleeping, making my own baby food – these practices felt natural to ME.

I think it’s absolutely wonderful that each and every woman does what feels right for her family. Who am I to judge?

But when I hear about placenta eating moms and moms chewing their own food before giving to their kids, I have to bite my tongue… I pause – now hold on a second!

I can’t help but think – are we taking parenting a little too far? Is this just a different parenting style or just plain odd?

January Jones of Mad Men, 34, was back to work almost right after she giving birth to her son last September. The secret to her quick return?

“I have a great doula who makes sure I’m eating well, with vitamins and teas, and with placenta capsulation,” she said.

“Your placenta gets dehydrated and made into vitamins… It’s something I was very hesitant about, but we’re the only mammals who don’t ingest our own placentas.”

Yes, placentophagy, or eating placenta, may sound really gross to most but apparently the practice is not that uncommon. In parts of the world, it’s quite the norm.

New moms think their placenta-pills provide benefits like giving energy and fighting baby blues. But scientific research has yet to prove this is true.

jones silverstone — Alicia Silverstone (left), January Jones (right)

Then we have Alicia Silverstone who chews food before feeding it – by mouth – to her son who is almost a year old. In some cultures, direct mouth-to-mouth feeding is linked with the showing of affection, known as kiss feeding. But her son is now 11 months old… should he be learning how to chew his food all by himself?

Silverstone also put “elimination communication” on the map for me anyway – toilet training an infant using a “diaper free method”. I had no idea that some cultures do this – they carry around their babies diaper free and of course, babies learn at an early age when to use the toilet.

But these practices happen in a different part of the world… it’s almost odd to imagine North American parents using these unique parenting styles here.

Are some taking this alternative parenting style too far?

We remember Alicia Silverstone as being a high-maintenance fashion obsessed girl in Clueless.

But she is far from that persona now that she’s a mom!

Alicia has an interesting way of feeding her baby son Bear Blu, who is about 11 months old.

She uses the “bird” approach… meaning like birds, she will chew the food first and then give the food by mouth to her son.

How is her son going to learn how to chew his own food if she is doing it for him?

On her blog, she writes:

“I just had a delicious breakfast of miso soup, collards and radish steamed and drizzled with flax oil, cast iron mochi with nori wrapped outside, and some grated daikon. Yum! I fed Bear the mochi and a tiny bit of veggies from the soup…from my mouth to his. It’s his favorite…and mine. He literally crawls across the room to attack my mouth if I’m eating. This video was taken about a month or 2 ago when he was a bit wobbly. Now he is grabbing my mouth to get the food! Here’s a little video.”

According to Wikipedia, this is called “premastication” or pre-chewing helps to break down food in order to feed another that is incapable of masticating the food by themselves. In many human cultures, this direct mouth-to-mouth feeding is linked with the showing of affection, known as kiss feeding.

But her son is now 11 months old… you would think she would want him to learn to chew solids on his own at this age?

But it’s not the first ‘unique’ practice of the Clueless star who had her baby with husband Christopher Jarecki last May and has been chronicling her parenting moments on Twitter. When her son was 5 months old, she tweeted that “he went poo and pee on toilet 4x throughout the day…we were so proud!”

She was also into toilet training an infant using a “diaper free method”, a term called elimination communication. Apparently some cultures do this, carry around their babies diaper free.

So there ya go, folks! What do you think?

Placenta-Eating Mouth-Feeding Moms?

Alicia Silverstone Chews Food for Her Son: Cute or Gross?