Coleen Rooney reveals she is eating her placenta after giving birth to son Kit

By Katie Wilson: ITV News

Coleen Rooney has revealed she is eating her placenta after the birth of her son Kit.

The mum-of-three has had her afterbirth made into pills and tweeted a picture of them with the caption: "Looking forward to starting my capsules."

It comes after her and footballer husband Wayne Rooney welcomed 8lbs 1oz Kit on Sunday.

The number of pills which can made from a placenta range from between 100 to 250 and costs from £200, according to Placenta Plus.

And women are advised to take two tablets three times a day with food for the first 10 days after they have given birth.

After that the dosage is up to them so the pills will usually last between eight and 16 weeks.

Some of the benefits of placenta encapsulation are said to include:

• Higher energy levels

• Increased weight loss

• More balanced hormones

• Less chance of developing the baby blues

• Improved hair, skin and nails

Coleen is one of a number of celebrity mums who have chosen to eat their placentas.

Mad Men star January Jones and actress Alicia Silverstone have both done it.

And Kim Kardashian revealed she planned to eat hers after giving birth to second child Saint West in a bid to stave off postnatal depression.

But Coleen said it was not the celebrity trend which had inspired her to do it, tweeting: "It was a friend who recommended it to me, never heard of it before."

Danielle Kinny, from Placenta Plus, who converted Coleen's pills, said the whole process takes 24 hours from when the placenta is picked up from the hospital.

She told ITV News: "I take the placenta to my unit, clean it, and check it is okay to be turned into pills.

"Then it is cut into small slices and dehydrated for 15 hours before it can be ground down into pill form."

She added the main benefit for her was to combat her post-natal depression, which she didn't suffer at all after taking them with her third child.