In 2015 Natalie drove 11,206 kilometres to hospital and back, wore 618 pairs of gloves, ran her dehydrator for 1,236 hours, filled 14,790 capsules, made up 14,843 litres of bleach solution and completed her training and certification with APPA, all for the love of placentas.
It began in 2009, when she had her first child and she tried to consume the little bundles of raw placenta her partner prepared for her. She couldn’t quite stomach these and so they made the decision to bury the placenta instead. In 2012 she was lucky enough to receive another placenta, oh and a rather cute baby too, this time she encapsulated it (the placenta not the baby) and started taking the capsules daily. Over the next few weeks she realised, as crunchy as it sounded, that there might just be something in this – her recovery compared to her first time was amazing, short, energised, emotionally stable. There were a few days she forgot her capsules, and on those days she felt emotional and out of sorts, it was then she realised that there was definitely something in this. So, in between cluster feeds, baby gazing, toddler wrangling and finding her feet as a mama of two, she started to learn all she could about Placenta Encapsulation.
Fast forward to three years later, Natalie runs Placenta Vitality, a placenta encapsulation service on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Over 200 families have entrusted her with their placenta. She is a proud verified member of Placenta Services Australia and also serves on their Board. She is passionate about keeping Placenta Encapsulation safe and to very high industry standards in Australia. APPA wasn’t around when Natalie originally certified and when it came time for her annual re-certification she decide to retrain and certify with APPA. Placenta Nerd that she is, she loved the course and although already trained and experienced she still learnt things she hadn’t learnt before, like the combined length of all the capillaries in an average placenta is 52 kilometers, how amazing is that?!
Natalie’s dream is that Placenta Encapsulation becomes normalised rather than put in the ‘crunchy mama’ box. She works towards this dream by talking about placentas whenever she can, making fun videos to bring the service into the mainstream and networking with other birth professionals to help spread the love. Last year she launched the Sunshine Coast Baby Business Guide, a directory of local and mama-run small businesses in the pregnancy, birth and parenting fields.
When she is not working with placentas you can find her creating art with anything she can get her hands on, talking feminism with her friends over a wine, hanging with her family and laughing at fart jokes her three year old tells.
She loves discussing anything placenta so feel free to get in touch with any of your placenta questions:
Natalie Stokell MA ITEC MTI CPAS(APPAC)
EMAIL natalie@placentavitality.com
WEBSITE www.placentavitality.com
FACEBOOK www.facebook.com/PlacentaVitality
INSTAGRAM www.instagram.com/placentavitality
