A few weeks ago, a young woman (we’ll call her Maya) reached out to me after I shared an article I had written for IUDAlert titled: Depo-Provera is more than a Method of Birth Control—It’s a Means of Controlling Women in the “Depo Provera Side Effects” group on Facebook. In Maya’s message she stated, “Was on it for 6 years as a…
Unbeknownst to many women, there is a chance that once placed, your intrauterine device (IUD) might not stay put. Some of the ways women may experience complications with movement of their IUDs are IUD expulsion, IUD migration, and uterine or organ perforation by their IUDs. An IUD can be expelled from the uterus entirely (expulsion), or move within the uterus…
As a women’s health advocate, educator, and activist, I have followed the evolution of birth control over the last 35 years. I have witnessed a particularly troubling change as women have gone from being “in control” of early birth control methods like the pill, condom, and diaphragm, to newer methods (particularly in the class of long-acting reversible contraceptives, or LARCs)…
Among the most severe potential complications of an IUD are the risks of perforation, infection, and/or expulsion of the device. While these complications are purported to be rare, stories in popular media and articles in medical journals highlight that such risks with an IUD do exist. For the women who encounter those complications, the experience can be both devastating and blindsiding. In a recent article from the journal Images…
Spears’s gut-wrenching testimony starkly illustrates that when women cede control of their bodies to devices like IUDs, it paves the way for an alarming loss of bodily autonomy — all the more horrific for women who were forced to have the device implanted in the first place,
According to a new report by Spotlight for America, more than 3,000 women have reported to the FDA that the copper intrauterine device (IUD) Paragard has broken in their bodies, and nearly 2,000 of those have had serious complications as a result. According to a local ABC news report, Anna Speaks, a woman who chose the copper IUD for its…
Some women who have had intrauterine devices (IUDs) inserted, whether a hormonal IUD or a copper IUD, experience symptoms such as painful cramps, painful sex, pain in their abdomen or cervix, or unusual bleeding between periods. If you have any of these symptoms, you might be experience a misplaced or displaced IUD. According to Healthline, signs and symptoms of a…
In a study published in February 2020 in the international reproductive health journal Contraception, researchers found that many women seeking to have their intrauterine device (IUD) removed often face delays and roadblocks from their healthcare providers. The study, led by Jennifer Amico of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, employed a mystery caller process to contact 229 clinics across ten…
“We cannot rely on doctors to be upfront with women about the risks of birth control. So, it’s up to us.” This has become something of a mantra for me over the past few years. Sure, I run into the occasional woman who hears me talking about the risks and accuses me of fear mongering. But for the most part,…
When you are considering any type of birth control, you want to have all the information necessary to make an informed decision. Unfortunately, when it comes to the intrauterine device (IUD), there is a lot of conflicting information. Some women say they are nervous because they’ve heard other women’s “horror stories,” and some providers downplay those accounts because they don’t…