The Placental Microbiome: A New Site for Policing Women’s Bodies

This paper critiques a recent study on the placental microbiome and specifically its recommendations to women for preventing premature births, which were exaggerated and embellished in the media coverage it received. We contend that these preventive recommendations contribute to a pernicious, growing trend of policing women’s bodies and argue that the study provides no empirical evidence to justify them. We emphasize how the recommendations ignore important social and environmental risk factors for preterm birth that lie beyond individual choices and bodies and suggest that research on the placental microbiome, and especially media reports about it, should take these problems into account.