Comedian Katherine Ryan has revealed she “harvested” stem cells from her placenta immediately after giving birth to inject them into her face.
The 42-year-old, who’s currently expecting her fourth child, said a phlebotomist waited outside the delivery room while she was previously in labour to take blood from her umbilical cord.
Ryan told Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo on their NearlyParents podcast that the professional “instantly” conducted the extraction and the placenta was “sent away” to a lab.
She explained: “Then you bank your baby’s stem cells for life and then that, theoretically, can help if they should suffer from any type of disease.
“I mean, I do it to inject them into my face but it could also save a baby’s life if that's important to you,” Ryan joked to Laing and Habboo, who are currently expecting their first child.
Stem cells can act as a repair system for the body and are sometimes used in regenerative therapies for long-term conditions like Crohn’s disease.
In recent years, stem cell injections have grown in popularity as an anti-ageing remedy, with benefits claimed to include improved fine lines and wrinkles and increased collagen and elastin regeneration.
It comes after Calvin Harris and his wife Vick Hope shared they’d turned Hope’s placenta into capsules following the birth of their first child last month.
Many women choose to consume their placenta after giving birth, sometimes raw but otherwise cooked, dehydrated, processed, drunk as tea or encapsulated as a supplement.
Although research has found eating placenta may increase milk production and decrease postpartum depression rates, it can also present risk of ingesting toxins and bacteria.
Ryan announced she was pregnant with her fourth child in June, telling Hello! magazine her eldest “is not very excited” to have another sibling because she doesn’t think she should be having more children.
The Canadian comedian is already mum to three girls and a boy – Fred, three, and Fenna, two, with partner Bobby Koostra, as well as 16-year-old Violet with a previous partner.
Former Made in Chelsea stars Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo also announced they were expecting a child in June this year after marrying in front of friends and family in Sotogrande, Spain in 2023.
