Last week, actress January Jones admitted to People Magazine that she ate her own placenta as part of a healthy post-natal regimen. While she got the requisite amount of slack for this –- ABC's headline reads "Mad Mom?.." -- , author Nancy Redd wrote more seriously for NYTimes.com about about the experience she had ingesting afterbirth -- one that was mostly negative.

New York Magazine was the first publication to call out eating afterbirth as a trend. In "The Placenta Cookbook," Atossa Araxia Abrahamian documented benefits of the "snack"; it "is said to alleviate postpartum depression, aid in breastmilk production and lactation, act as a uterine tonic, and replenish nutrients lost during pregnancy," she wrote.

But because there have been no scientific studies to confirm or deny the benefits of eating placenta (which, can actually be consumed in pill form, not necessarily with fries on the side), arguments on either side have been strictly anecdotal.

In September, Babble blogger Elizabeth Stark recounted her decision to try placenta eating and encouraged other moms to follow her lead. "I didn't experience mood swings and I had more energy while taking the pills. Though I don't have a double-blind, peer-reviewed study to back up my claim, I feel confident that placenta-eating made those first few postpartum weeks easier," she wrote.

And, Jones -– whose real-life parenting tactics are a far cry from on-screen character, Betty Draper's -- told People that taking the capsules isn't "witch-crafty" and she recommends it to all moms. Besides, she adds, humans are the only mammals who don't do it.