Many animals eat their placenta after birth. Zoologists know this is to ward off predators, but when the "natural" birth movement took off in the 1960s, believers stated that if animals do it, it must be for a health reason and humans should also.

Ingesting the placenta has become a popular practice among moms, with celebrities like TV personality Kim Kardashian West and actress January Jones claiming that it helps boost energy and deal with postpartum depression.

A study has recently suggested that new mothers consuming placenta pills, following childbirth, will experience little to no effect on their post-partum mood, maternal bonding or fatigue.

When you're expecting your first baby, the amount of conflicting information on pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting out there can be overwhelming. Should you breastfeed or use formula? Co-sleep or not? So many choices are fraught with controversy, but there's one decision that's now easier to make than ever, because there's even more evidence that women shouldn't be eating their placentas, in any form. It's true that many other mammals do so, but whether you're blending it into a smoothie or popping freeze-dried pills, placentophagy offers no benefits to humans, and it can actually be extremely dangerous for both mother and child.

Celebrity socialite Kim Kardashian West says it boosted her energy level. Mad Men’s January Jones touts it as a cure for postpartum depression. But does eating one’s placenta after birth—an apparently growing practice around the globe—actually confer any health benefits? Not really, according to the first in-depth analyses of the practice.

UNLV’s School of Medicine received a $234,443 state public safety grant to examine traffic-related injuries and deaths in Nevada, university officials said Wednesday.

Passing the gravy can quickly escalate to a debate on passing tax or immigration reform, especially during the holidays.

The same morning a hearing was held to ask the court to force UNLV to reopen its maternal-HIV program an attorney for the university said there is no need for such action.

“I can't believe I lived through it, frankly,” Barbara Atkinson told me, as we sat at the conference table in her corner office, dotted with flowers and candy, gifts from well-wishers.

Her sudden illness came at an inopportune time, with class beginning, but Atkinson says her team and her school were ready to move on without a hitch.

There are images that will stay with Dr. Deborah Kuhls for a long time. The lethal gunshot wound to the head. The woman who kept her friend alive by keeping her fingers in the bleeding bullet wound all the way to the hospital. And the moment when Dr. Kuhls had to cut open an airway for an obese patient who couldn’t be intubated.

I met Larry Farris 75, and Marv Jackson, 68, at the UNLV Medical School clinic on Charleston Boulevard.