Tattoos, Pottery, and Placenta. Oh my!

Hello people of the internet, nice to meet you all! My name is Becca. When I'm not tattooing someone or getting messy making ceramics, I'm knee deep in placenta.

Long story short - I really like poking things. I swear that the tats, pots, and human tissues aren't really so different.

I got started with the ceramics when I realized that my high school art teacher was just about the only cool person I knew. She never brushed her hair and didn't seem to give a damn, so I used to hide in her room during lunch period. Only problem was, I had to pretend I was up to something interesting rather than admit the truth (that I was hopelessly socially inept) so I messed around on her pottery wheel awhile.
Turns out I was okay at it?

And after 2 years of pretending I was up to something interesting, I actually was.
As a result, I ended up studying a mix of art and science in college, and I still make ceramics at Black Hound Clay Studio. Any Philly peeps check it out - shit's LIT ; http://www.blackhoundclay.com/

The tattooing happened by accident. And by that I mean I was faded as hell one day and decided that I was going to learn tattooing. And then actually did. Studying medicine cured me of any blood or needle related fears, and the lifetime of art gave me a steady hand. So really it made all the sense in the world. Now I tattoo on the side for friends and anyone who ~slides in my dms~ with a cool project.

And now for the main event, placenta! I knew I wanted to work in medicine, and women are rad beyond all reason, so women's health checked all my boxes. Now I work as a Research Coordinator in Labor and Delivery. Basically, I identify eligible patients who are in labor, consent them to studies for which they're eligible, and then process their specimens. Which is mostly - you guessed it - PLACENTA! Turns out that the placenta is a big part of a healthy pregnancy, and we're working on ways to use the placenta as a diagnostic tool. We can use antepartum (before birth) placental imaging, and postpartum (after birth) analysis of cellular metabolism in the placenta to identify conditions and potentially develop treatments.

If you wanna see some cool photos, keep scrolling. If you're easily shaken by pictures of blood, do NOT keep scrolling. Personally I find this organ to be dazzlingly beautiful!

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This is the fetal side of the placenta, where the umbilical cord remains attached to the baby until birth. A healthy placenta has a range of pinks and reds, and is robust and self contained. There is no feathering of tissues, and the organ is supple but doesn't easily break apart when handled. This is a 5 star placenta!

This gives you an idea of the approximate size of the organ. The average term birth placenta weights around 500 grams. Preterm placentas are smaller as they've had less time to grow.

If you're curious about the relationship between the placenta and the health/length of pregnancy, check out the scientific resources below!

http://prematurityresearch.org/penn/assets/Uploads/PDFs/Penn-Theme-Area-3-011815E.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24848255
https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-016-0172-3