The Inner Rhythms Podcast

Episode 56 - New Non-Hormonal Birth Control Methods: Innovation or Interruption?

• Iris Josephina • Episode 56

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🐚Topics covered

  • Critical analysis of Mifepristone as a "hormone-free" weekly birth control pill
  • Examination of a new microscopic valve system for fallopian tubes
  • The difference between "hormone-free" and truly non-invasive contraception
  • Why blocking progesterone isn't as neutral as it sounds
  • The materials and potential risks of implantable valve devices
  • Who really controls these "empowering" birth control innovations
  • The business and profit motives behind contraceptive technology
  • Why body literacy and education are more empowering than technological fixes


About the Host

I’m Iris Josephina—functional hormone specialist, orthomolecular hormone coach, and entrepreneur. Through Cycle Seeds and The Inner Rhythms Podcast, I support people in reconnecting with their cyclical nature, deepening body literacy, and reclaiming hormonal harmony from a place of sovereignty and embodied knowledge. Most people know me from Instagram, where I share stories, tools, and inspiration on cyclical living, menstrual cycles, fertility, hormones and more. 


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📊 Chart Your Cycle Masterclass: https://cycleseeds.plugandpay.nl/checkout/chart-your-cycle-97



[00:00:00] Iris Josephina: Welcome back to the Inner Rhythms Podcast. My name is Iris Josephina, and today we are exploring some things that have been flooding the headlines lately, more specifically in the Netherlands and in Belgium. I'm not really sure whether this has reached international news, but since this podcast is in English, I'm hoping for it to reach more people so people can get educated.

[00:00:27] Iris Josephina: So something that has been floating the headlines lately is a quote unquote new birth control pill that is set to be hormone free, only needs to be taken weekly and has hardly any side effects. That pill, Mifepristone. But as someone who is deeply devoted to the body's innate wisdom and the intelligence of the menstrual cycle, I couldn't help but ask,

[00:00:55] Iris Josephina: "Is this really innovation or is it just another interruption of a perfectly healthy cycle that was never broken to begin with? So that's one. Secondly, another quote unquote, innovation is a device. That works by means of a valve. It's a microscopic valve system that gets inserted 

[00:01:27] Iris Josephina: into your fallopian tubes.

[00:01:29] Iris Josephina: And the idea is simple. When the valve is open, you can get pregnant. When the valve is closed, sperm can't reach the egg. Now there is a lot to say about this, and while I'm all for innovation, I am first and foremost all about. Education. So that's what we're gonna do here. I am first gonna talk about me and how.

[00:01:56] Iris Josephina: There has been a proposal to use this as non-hormonal birth control, and then we're gonna talk about this little valve system. So let's dive in. You are listening to the podcast of Iris Josephina. If you are passionate about exploring the menstrual cycle, cyclical living, body wisdom, personal growth, spirituality, and running a business in alignment with your natural cycles, you're in the right place.

[00:02:21] Iris Josephina: I'm Iris. I'm an entrepreneur, functional hormone specialist, trainer and coach, and I am on a mission to share insights, fun, facts, and inspiration I discover along the way as I run my business and walk my own path on earth. Here you'll hear my personal stories, guest interviews, and vulnerable shares from clients and students.

[00:02:42] Iris Josephina: Most people know me from Instagram where you can find me under at cycle seats, or they have been a coaching client or student in one of my courses. I'm so grateful you're here. Let's dive into today's episode. 

[00:02:55] Iris Josephina: So what is Mifepristone? So originally you didn't mention this in all of the headlines, but originally Mifepristone is originally used in medical abortion.

[00:03:08] Iris Josephina: Mifepristone is basically an anti- progestin, which means that it blocks progesterone, and progesterone is a key hormone that is produced through ovulation and is highest in the second phase of your cycle in your luteal phase, and it's the key hormone that is needed to maintain a healthy uterine lining and to maintain a pregnancy.

[00:03:34] Iris Josephina: Now they are researching this pill, at low dosages for weekly birth control use. Now, what is appealing to this is that it is not a combination of synthetic estrogen and progestin like the traditional hormonal birth control pills that we all know about. And it is also reported that it causes fewer side effects than a pill, and it is promoted as the new way of non-hormonal birth control.

[00:04:08] Iris Josephina: And this promise of fewer side effects is very powerful because in the last couple of years, people have been really waking up to the fact that hormonal birth control actually comes with a lot of side effects that are not particularly nice and, the general consensus about the hormone or birth control pill is changing from this is the best thing that ever happened to us to, "Hey, let's be a little bit more critical about this and look into how this affects our natural hormones and, do the benefits really outweigh the side effects and the, and the not so nice consequences, like more depressed feelings, a dysregulated cortisol metabolism, the fact that nutrients aren't absorbed properly."

[00:04:59] Iris Josephina: So when we're talking about hormone or birth control. The consensus is that, you know, we, we are starting to understand that this is maybe not the best option for everyone, which I think is a good thing. But then to come in with another pill, another way of technically medicalizing our menstrual cycle, which is a vital sign of health and which is a natural marker of overall wellness in the body, coming up with a pill.

[00:05:36] Iris Josephina: That is a progesterone blocker. We are again talking about shutting down one of the most essential hormones in the phenotypical female body. So how do we feel about that? Like, yes, it's non-hormonal, but it does completely block. One of your most important sex hormones that are going around in your body, and progesterone has a lot more functions in the body than just maintaining a pregnancy.

[00:06:15] Iris Josephina: So how do we feel about that? Let that just sink in. Now, this Mifepristone is marketed as hormone free. So let's, let's unpack that. We are not putting synthetic, non bioidentical hormones in our body, but what we are doing is we allow this medication to actively interfere with our own natural hormones.

[00:06:48] Iris Josephina: Blocking progesterone isn't neutral. It impacts your mood, it impacts your metabolism, it impacts your brain health, it impacts your sleep. All these bodily functions are heavily impacted by progesterone. What happens when we block out progesterone completely on top of that, progesterone is a protective hormone.

[00:07:16] Iris Josephina: I have seen a lot of people who have very low progesterone or progesterone overridden by synthetic progesterone, and the effects are not nice. People experience more depression, people experience more anxiety. People experience sleeplessness. So we really, we really need to be critical about. What is going to happen when we completely block our natural progesterone production?

[00:07:48] Iris Josephina: Now with this, you know, Mifepristone, the studies are small and have been performed very short term, so we don't yet know how long term use of Mifepristone as birth control. How this long-term use affects our hormone balance, our fertility, our bone health, our metabolism, our brain health, or the nervous system, we simply do not know because the research isn't there.

[00:08:27] Iris Josephina: And you know a lot, a lot of people may be drawn to this. Innovation of using Mifepristone as as a birth control, and many people are most likely drawn to it because of the reduced bleeding or the reduced pain. But what we're doing here again is symptom suppression. It's not root cause healing, and it continues the pattern of medicating away menstrual cycle messages and hormone messages.

[00:09:03] Iris Josephina: When you block a hormone, you block its messages, but you don't solve the problem. If you have problems with your menstrual cycle, and this is the way that you're gonna go about it, the issues are just gonna return when you stop this. And in my personal opinion, I'm gonna share my opinion now. This use of Mifepristone as birth control, it reinforces.

[00:09:32] Iris Josephina: Disconnection. The narrative is still the same. It is marketed as this innovation. We're not using synthetic hormones. Yay. But the narrative doesn't change. The narrative still is your cycle. Your natural hormones are a burden. Quiet it down now, from what I have seen in my work. And my work with clients, and specifically in the field of empowerment, true empowerment doesn't come from shutting down your body's hormones.

[00:10:11] Iris Josephina: It comes from deeply understanding what happens in the body and then supporting the body to solve whatever we're struggling with. So when, when did we decide that less bleeding equals more success? That no mood shifts mean balance. We've been conditioned to believe that silencing the body and silence in the body is peace when often is just suppression.

[00:10:45] Iris Josephina: We're actively suppressing what the body is doing, and I want to go a little bit deeper into this and. Pause for a bit, and let's just ask why are we always looking for the next pill?

[00:11:05] Iris Josephina: Why instead of developing tools to work with our cycle, without adjusting biology, without shutting down biology, we're investing millions into ways to override it and to shut it down. Progesterone isn't your enemy, nor is your bleed. They're not our enemies. We have gotten into this narrative that we need to control externally, control our biology because it's too much for the world to deal with,

[00:11:41] Iris Josephina: and I really want to stand for. All of us understanding our bodies so deeply that we do not feel the urge to overwrite them and to shut them down

[00:11:54] Iris Josephina: every time we rush to silence a symptom without asking why is this symptom here in the first place? We miss an invitation to understand our bodies. Yes, a pill might bring temporary relief, but at what cost? We don't know that We haven't researched this yet, so my suggestion is to keep asking a lot of questions.

[00:12:24] Iris Josephina: We are, you know, presented these like innovative new ways to have birth control. That are non-hormonal and it's presented to us on a platter as if it's something amazing. But our bodies are already amazing. There is no need to keep, you know, adjusting everything, blocking everything, silencing everything.

[00:12:55] Iris Josephina: And I personally think, and this is again my personal opinion, I think it is much more powerful. For people to get to know their menstrual cycles, to get to know their fertile window, to get to know the job of each of their sex hormones and exploring non-hormonal birth control options and actually support the body and enhance health.

[00:13:26] Iris Josephina: Instead of silencing very natural messengers that have a purpose

[00:13:34] Iris Josephina: and I really feel that we do not need another quick fix.

[00:13:40] Iris Josephina: Mifepristone might offer new possibilities. But before we label it as freedom, let's get really honest. Are we innovating or are we making people feel that there's something wrong with them, that their biology is something that needs to be fixed? I truly believe that the future of birth control does not lie in all this technology, but in education.

[00:14:10] Iris Josephina: In sovereignty and in a return to body literacy.

[00:14:15] Iris Josephina: So this is one way in which the world is trying to tell us that we need to fix our bodies and another way that has been presented, something entirely different. So researchers at the Maxima Medical Center in the Netherlands have developed a prototype for a hormone-free contraceptive device, which is technically a microscopic valve system that gets inserted into your fallopian tubes.

[00:14:51] Iris Josephina: The idea is very simple. On the surface, when the valve is closed, sperm can't reach the egg, and when you're ready to conceive, you book an appointment and the physician reopens the valves. Sounds like science fiction meets liberation kind of right. They claim it's effective, it's painless, it's hormone free and rev reversible, and they report that there is no impact on libido.

[00:15:19] Iris Josephina: There are no mood swings, no more forgetting the pill or stressing about ovulation apps. The tagline of this company is your body, your choice, but let's unpack that. Because when you look closer, it becomes really clear that what they're really offering is not freedom. It's a new form of control. Yes, it's hormone free.

[00:15:47] Iris Josephina: Yes. It avoids the systemic side effects of traditional hormone birth control. Correct. But what they don't say loudly enough is that you cannot control this device yourself. You do not get to open or close the valve. That power still belongs to your doctor, your provider, the system. And this isn't, you know, the kind of autonomy we're told it is, it's not truly your body, your choice.

[00:16:18] Iris Josephina: It's outsourced agency. And to me that's the, you know, the continuation of a same old pattern. Women's bodies are treated like problems that need to be fixed. Our cycles are disruptions to be neutralized. Our fertility is an unpredictable risk that needs managing. And now instead of hormones, we are inserting industrial grade materials into some of the most sacred tissues in the body.

[00:16:52] Iris Josephina: Is that really freedom? Is that really your body or choice? Is it, I have done some research because obviously I wanted to know what is this, what is it made of?

[00:17:07] Iris Josephina: And I found out that there are some concerning products or raw materials that are used to create this valve system. First up there is nitinol. It's a nickel titanium alloy that is praised for its flexibility, but it contains nickel, which is a known allergen that can cause various health problems. Then there is aluminum oxide,

[00:17:40] Iris Josephina: which is durable and chemically resistant, but it's also very much debated for long-term safety in biological systems and in bodies.

[00:17:57] Iris Josephina: And on top of that, we all know about the consequences of aluminum. In the body, like in the functional health field, it is really not recommended to put anything that is aluminum inside of your body. And then the outside is medical grade silicone. Supposedly it's inert, but it's also in the research associated with inflammation, with immune responses and chronic complications in some cases.

[00:18:30] Iris Josephina: We're talking about stent like mechanisms that are borrowed from cardiovascular and urological medicine being implanted into the fallopian tubes as though those tubes are just passive plumbing that can be engineered like a water system. But fallopian tubes are not pipes. Fallopian tubes are also not veins.

[00:18:53] Iris Josephina: They are living, pulsing muscular tissue and they don't just transport eggs, they, they participate in the orchestration of life. To reduce them to a tube that needs like a gait is to really flatten their function. And we really have to ask why is the default all the time intervention. Why is solution always something inserted into the body or taken into the body instead of returning us to our connection with the body?

[00:19:35] Iris Josephina: And here's where we have to go even deeper, because this is not just scientific innovation, it's a product. Backed by venture capital, shaped by market forecasts wrapped in empowerment language, while driven by profit motives. The amount of money that is invested in this is insane.

[00:19:57] Iris Josephina: Behind the scenes. They're not just testing safety and efficacy. They're analyzing target demographics, calculating adoption rates, preparing their patents and their profit models. This is EmTech Capitalism where our physiology is seen as something scalable, and our autonomy is just another selling point.

[00:20:21] Iris Josephina: Let that sink in. They say, never worry about the pill again, no need for painful IUDs, no impact on libido. Just choose when you open or close your fertility.

[00:20:34] Iris Josephina: But let's be honest, who holds the key to the valve? Not you. It requires a specialist. It requires a clinic. It requires a catheter. It requires a camera. It requires compliance with a system that still does not seem to fully trust your body to be regulated by you. So while this may seem like a leap forward,

[00:21:05] Iris Josephina: in many ways, it's just a shinier more mechanical continuation of, of, of a deeper narrative that the female body needs controlling that fertility is a problem, and that real freedom comes from somewhere outside of your body, and I don't really believe that. I believe the future of contraception does not lie in more devices, more implants, or more outsource control.

[00:21:38] Iris Josephina: I really believe that it lies in reconnecting us with our body. I believe it lies in education, proper, honest, open, real education. I believe it lies in body literacy, and I believe it. Lies in sovereignty that is not dependent on practitioner's hands or a company's product, or a medical system's gatekeeping.

[00:22:04] Iris Josephina: We cannot keep settling for innovations that remove us from our own knowing we can't keep mistaking access to products for true autonomy. Real freedom means having choices that are self-governed. And I am gonna take it even a step further, and you don't have to agree with me, but this is my personal stance.

[00:22:28] Iris Josephina: Real liberation means not just being hormone free, like synthetic hormone free, but also in some way being system free, and that you can rely upon it when you choose, and it means trusting. Our biology trusting our bodies, and I will always keep supporting people in learning the language of their bodies.

[00:22:58] Iris Josephina: And my invitation is just to not be blindsided by marketing and pretty words. Let's stay discerning. Let's keep asking who benefits from this, who profits, and most importantly, who holds the power? Because if it's not you, is it truly your choice?

[00:23:22] Iris Josephina: So I'm curious how you feel about all of this. I'm curious how this lands for you. I'm curious. What your stance in it is. I already shared a little bit about all of this on my Instagram and I did a little poll asking like, okay, how do you feel about this? And I put like a little question box and people responded.

[00:23:50] Iris Josephina: It gives me the creeps. It's taking autonomy away from women themselves. It's again, putting all responsibility for fertility control in women's hands. And by the way, female bodies are only truly feral for 24 hours. This is how long our egg lives. The reason that we count about six days of being fertile is because sperm can survive up to five days in our bodies.

[00:24:22] Iris Josephina: And yet men remain 24 7 fertile. And yet we would have to undergo or undertake another like intervention to control our fertility. That really, if you like, strip it down to the core, lasts for 24 hours per month.

[00:24:48] Iris Josephina: Let that sink in and I'm very curious to hear from you. I'm very curious to, to hear how this lands for you, what your stance is, what you think about this, and by no means I am completely against. Finding new ways to manage our fertility. But what I am very critical about is that many of these ways are offered as the holy Grail.

[00:25:22] Iris Josephina: And it happened like twice in one week here in the Netherlands. First it was like the new non-hormone birth control pill, and it was presented on a golden platter. As the holy grail of contraception. A week later, this microscopic valve system was offered in the exact same way, and like I said, I'm not completely against this, but I don't think it's really fair to use such a strong marketing strategy.

[00:25:59] Iris Josephina: And offer this as the Holy Grail for women who are suffering and women who are struggling because let me tell you something else, the holy Grail does not exist when it comes to birth control. It's a very personal journey. Everyone has to weigh the pros and cons. Everyone has to make their own decisions about this.

[00:26:25] Iris Josephina: It's very personal. It's very bio individual, and yet again, all of these quote unquote innovations are presented as the solution to control your body, the solution for the burden that is female fertility. And I ju I simply do not agree with that because it does not truly empower people. We are medicalizing biologically healthy menstrual cycles.

[00:27:00] Iris Josephina: We are medicalizing biologically healthy bodies. While there is nothing wrong with us, nothing

[00:27:09] Iris Josephina: so. Keep your mind open, keep asking questions, and most importantly, trust yourself when you are, you know, weighing out all of the options for birth control. Choose something that truly, truly feels good for you, and maybe it is one of these two options that's possible, but make sure that you are educated.

[00:27:41] Iris Josephina: Make sure that you know how it works. Make sure that you know what you can expect. Make sure that you have people that you trust that you can talk to outside of the medical system and inside of the medical system, and make sure that the people that you're gonna talk to are honest to you, who do not have a hidden agenda of trying to sell you something.

[00:28:05] Iris Josephina: Because in the end, the medical system is also just a marketing system. Let's not forget that it's a business.

[00:28:11] Iris Josephina: And we need to remember that. So my humble recommendation is to stay close to yourself and keep asking the questions, be discerning and make sure that whatever option you choose. Truly feels in alignment with what you believe, what you value, and what you need for your body, for your fertility, and for your sense of sovereignty.

[00:28:46] Iris Josephina: And as always, feel free to reach out to me if you need extra education. If you need extra support, I'm here for you and let's make sure. Your choices of contraception are heard, are seen and respected. And if you are one of these people who are like, nuh nuh, that I'm gonna put something like that in my body, all good as well.

[00:29:16] Iris Josephina: And if you are someone who is like, I would love to know. My own body. I would love to learn about my menstrual cycle, and I would actually love to become more aware about my fertility, about my menstrual cycle. I have something for you. I have created my masterclass chart, your Cycle, where I teach you everything you want to know and everything that you haven't learned in school about your menstrual cycles, about the hormones, about your fertile window, about your primary fertility, biomarkers, like your basal body temperature, your cervical fluid, the position and the texture of your cervix.

[00:29:59] Iris Josephina: I teach you everything about it, so you. Can get to know your menstrual cycle intimately, and I teach you how to chart it so that you know when you are fertile, when you're not fertile, when you need to use extra protection, if you don't want to get pregnant, and how to truly. Take control of your menstrual cycle and have the wisdom and the knowledge in your own hands.

[00:30:28] Iris Josephina: If that's something that you're interested in, feel free to hop on to the show notes. I put a link to my class there. Check it out. If it resonates with you, feel free to get it and I, I'd be happy to teach you everything I know about menstrual cycle charting. And I'll see you in the next episode. Okay, this wraps up today's episode.

[00:30:50] Iris Josephina: Thank you so much for listening. Want to know more about me? The best way to reach me is via at Cycle Seeds on Instagram. And if you heard something today and you think, oh my God, wow, I learned something new, feel free to share the podcast on your social media and tag me or leave a review of rating. In this way, you help me reach more people like you.

[00:31:11] Iris Josephina: Thank you so much.