The most beautiful after-birth tradition.

You can pop it in your morning smoothie.

You can get it made into pills.

You can even get it made into jewellery.

By “it”, I mean your newborn’s placenta. Over the last few years, the focus of post-birth (other than the chubby-cheeked baby) has shifted from dropping the baby weight to what you’re planning on doing with your baby’s placenta.

While I’m of the belief “each to their own”, I’ve honestly never been a huge fan of the placenta.

However, there is one placenta-plan that is undeniably beautiful.

In the Maori culture, the word for both placenta and land is “whenua”. After the birth, Maori parents take the placenta and umbilical cord (called “pito”) and bury it. Returning the placenta – the baby’s life force for those precious nine months – to mother nature, establishing their life long bond.

The beautiful tradition has been doing the rounds on Facebook after a photographer’s post went viral.

Mothers across the internet have admired the photo of little baby Harper, as well as, answer Emma Jean's question.

"How did you honour your placenta?"

Of the almost 500 comments so far, here are a few of the beautiful ways this tradition has been honoured.

"Archer and Kauri are buried on my Marae [family grounds]. This baby coming placenta will be taken to NZ when I go back in July."

"All 5 of my Pep's placentas are buried under a tree, near their great grandparents on the East Coast."

"This is beautiful! I have my 5 placentas. all my sisters kids placentas nieces nephews placentas are buried at my Mum and Dads homestead xxo"

"We just buried our two girls Placentas yesterday (2/1/16) at a reserve in a forest named after my papa. We marked them with two pohutukawa maori princess trees."

"My babies Whenua is buried under a sacred tree along with mine, my siblings and their kids, my dad's, his dads and his dad's dads etc..."

Photographer, Emma Jean, responded to the many stories with:

"Loving hearing all these stories of how you have honored your placentas. It's so wonderful to hear they are appreciated for the amazing job they did bringing your children earthside."

"How did you honour your placenta?"

We decided to show mums and non mums in our office amazing photos of placentas and captured their reactions (you can see the photos they are looking at here). See for yourself:

WATCH the video below...