The Miami Maternity Center was briefly shut down after a Christmas Eve raid by more than 20 state and federal agents who were investigating allegation that the facility was using placentas to make pills for new mothers, according to MiamiHerald.com.

A press release from the Florida Health Department said its unlicensed activity unit had investigated the center for 10 months. "It was learned that women who had given birth at the center were being provided placenta pills as a prophylactic measure in order to mitigate or prevent post partum depression."

Center owner and senior midwife Shari Daniels scoffed at the report, saying, "This is big brother at its worst." She said that the center saves dried parts of the placentas of women who give birth at the center and puts them in bags to give the patients, who can do with them what they want.

"Women want their own placentas. Some chose to plant it in a plant. If women don't want them, we dispose of them as medical waste. These allegations that we cook up 10 or 12 at a time -- we don't have that many births in a day. But a mother has a right to her own body."

The investigators removed about 500 patient records, computers, frozen placentas, dehydrated placentas, a dehydrator machine, grinding device, prescription pads and billing records, according to the Health Department. The material was taken to a Food and Drug Administration facility for analysis.