From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishplacentapla‧cen‧ta /pləˈsentə/ noun [countable] HBHan organ that forms inside a woman’s uterus to feed an unborn baby —placental adjective [only before noun] placental blood
Examples from the Corpus
placenta• The latter looks like a placenta and has the same consistency, too.• The birth is recorded in an odd shot of the nurse gleefully holding aloft the bloody placenta.• If there's any chance it is placenta praevia, it could detach and cause a haemorrhage.• It causes many complications, including small placenta size, stillbirth and low birthweight.• After the second month of pregnancy, estriol levels steadily increase as the placenta takes over estrogen production. 344.• Second, the story is a reminder that caffeine, like alcohol, freely crosses the placenta.• In the case of estriol, the placenta utilizes a dehydroepiandrosterone precursor made in the adrenal glands of the fetus.• These chemicals were getting through the placenta and reaching foetuses in the womb and the eggs of birds and fish.Origin placenta (1600-1700) Latin “flat cake”, from Greek, from plax “flat surface” 