Why I’m no longer interested in aging placentas

7 years ago I wrote one of my most popular blog posts: The Myth of the aging placenta, a lengthy article designed to support parents and birth professionals in understanding that the mainstream view that placentas “age” and stop functioning at the end of pregnancy isn’t based on logic or solid evidence. 

Recently I was asked to be interviewed about this topic, something I’ve done a lot in the past. But when I listened to my body, it was a very clear no. 

How I got there

I want to explain why I’ve moved on from this, and other topics.

4 years ago I stopped working as a doula. If you want to understand why I did that, you can read this article I wrote at the time.

After I stopped doula work, I was in a weird limbo for some time, and eventually something else showed itself, which led to the writing of my second book, The beat of your own drum.

As I stepped away from birth work, I started to see the landscape more clearly for what it was, because it isn’t always easy to see the water you swim in. I remember the realisation that, contrary to what I had been believing, the maternity care system wasn’t broken at all: it was functioning exactly like it was designed to function, to control women. That was a hard moment for me.

And then, after I navigated supporting my youngest child’s inability to function within mainstream education and the battle that ensued to get them the support they needed, it became clear that the pattern of control was not confined to maternity care: it was also there in the way we are told to parent, in childcare, in education, in healthcare, in the workplace, in politics…it was everywhere. And at every point it was designed to make people, and especially women, do as they are told, and never question things.

In the introduction of my The beat of your own drum, I wrote this:

“Since stepping away from doula work a couple of years ago, I’ve come to the stark realisation that not only is the current maternity care system beyond repair, but that the thread of disempowerment weaves through every stage of a woman’s life. Its pervasive narrative that begins in infancy, winds its way through our experiences of parenting, education and careers. This insidious message – that we are somehow ignorant of our own needs and should defer to those who ‘know better’ – isn’t confined to any one sphere. It permeates politics, the medical and education world and is woven into the very fabric of our society. From the moment we’re born, we’re subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) taught to doubt our own instincts, to question our inner wisdom. It’s as if society has conspired to whisper in our ears, “You don’t know what’s best for you.” This message echoes in the halls of schools, reverberates in workplaces and finds its way into the most intimate moments of our lives.

The result? A deep-seated, often unconscious belief that our own knowledge– especially when it comes to our bodies, our choices, our lives – is somehow inferior to the ‘experts’. This belief chips away at our autonomy, erodes our confidence in our own experiences and intuition. And it’s a belief that I’ve come to recognise as not just false, but deeply harmful to the wellbeing and empowerment of women everywhere.”

It was never about the science

And so this is why I’m no longer interested in debating the science behind whether placentas age or not-because it’s looking at the wrong problem. It’s a distraction. 

As a doula, I always cautioned my clients against trying to argue their decisions by bringing scientific papers to meetings  with healthcare professionals. Not because the papers were wrong, but because it was the wrong dynamic. They didn’t have to justify their decisions. And the health professionals would almost never be convinced by the papers anyway; they would just look for holes in the argument.

This is the same thing. Picking apart the science behind specific policies misses the point entirely. The same is true of debating the science behind ANY hospital policy. The main issue is control. You cannot oppose control by arguing with logic.

A system built on control isn’t interested in engaging in self introspection, it is only interested in doing what it’s designed to do: to manage women’s behaviour, under the false pretence of risk management. As Jane Hardwicke Collings says: modern maternity care is “Institutionalised acts of abuse and violence on women and babies masquerading as safety”.

In my 15 years in the birth world it took me a good few years to understand that the people working within the system were victims of it too. As a scientist, I was flabbergasted when I encountered time and time again the lack of scientific curiosity in maternity care professionals. This was until I realised that the people who worked inside the system were actively discouraged from engaging in curiosity. It worked like a medieval church. Employees were expected to follow guidelines and hospital policies like if they were gospel. And if they engaged in questioning guidelines overtly, they were usually punished, or removed altogether.

So what can we do instead of arguing tiny details with authority figures who aren’t interested in questioning things? We focus on what we can control: ourselves and our power, which resides in our ability to listen to our inner wisdom.

We have spent a lifetime being taught to distrust ourselves. To defer to the expert, the system. Unlearning that is not a small thing. So how do we begin? 

Enters the drum

This is where working with the drum offers a new way of being. I started drumming during births, instinctively, because something in me told me this would help women. Then the women for whom I had drummed all told me the drumming not only helped them manage the sensations of labour better, every single one of them told me it gave them their power back. You can download a PDF of the article I wrote about this in the International Journal of Birth and Parenting Education here.

Whilst writing my book I realised that birth was meant to be an altered state of consciousness, and that the reason modern maternity care actively prevents this from happening is because it’s very hard to control women who have experienced this. I explain this in greater details in my article, Forbidden trance, why medicine hijacks altered consciousness during birth.

You might think: What’s has such a hippy thing as a drum got to do with managin the pain of birth, or to do with power? You might even scoff. I get it, because I too, used to think it was bullshit. And yet the scientific evidence behind how drumming changes our brain, our physiology, our emotional wellbeing is so overwhelming that I had to write not one but two chapters solely dedicated to the science of drumming in my book, and I’m currently in the process of doing some research on how drumming supports women’s wellbeing with Prof Joyce Harper of UCL London.

Beyond birth, drumming offers something that most of us urgently need: a direct route back to our own inner voice.

Here is why it works: most of us live in our heads. We overthink, second-guess, and talk ourselves out of what we already know. Drumming shifts that. Within minutes it can move us from an overactive thinking state into a meditative state where the noise settles and the inner voice becomes audible again. And the beauty is that you don’t even have to believe in it for it to work.

This isn’t mystical. It’s how rhythm works on the nervous system, by entraining brain waves. This was already known in the 1960s. And it means that something ancient and simple can do what years of conditioning have made very difficult: help us trust ourselves again.

What I do now

My work has shifted. Where I once supported women through birth as a rite of passage, I hold a broader vision.

We are living in a time of profound imbalance. The world is burning, literally and metaphorically, because we have become so disconnected from nature, from community, from ourselves. We can no longer function within the patriarchal model our society is built on.

I believe that helping women find their way back to their own inner voice is not a small thing. It is a path toward a different world.

Drumming works like psychedelics, opening and rewiring the mind to a completely new way of thinking and seeing. And yet, it is legal, affordable, accessible, and the system has no fucking clue how dangerous it is. And I don’t think it will for many years.

It is dangerous because women who enter altered states of consciousness, access their inner voice and their power, and it makes them very difficult to control. People who experience these things do not do as they are told. They question things. 

When women start drumming, and listening to the voice deep within, they can also imagine a new world, outside of the current system.

A world where belonging matters more than productivity. Where community is not optional but foundational. Where peace, nurturing, and mutual support are not ideals we aspire to but values to live by.

The drum is one of the oldest tools we have for this. It bypasses the thinking mind and speaks directly to something older in us. Something that remembers. When a woman picks up a drum and begins to play, she is not just making a sound. She is finding her voice, her rhythm, her power. She no longer needs someone to tell her what to do . She no longer abdicates authority. And it creates a ripple effect that attracts other women to do the same.

That is why I do this work. And that is why it matters now.

An invitation 

I have started a movement called Women drumming for peace. It happens every Sunday night at 8PM UK time. You can just join by intending to, or if you want more direct connection, I hold 10 minutes of live stream for this in my Facebook group, The Women Drumkeepers Community.