Apparently IUD users love their IUD so much they can’t help themselves from spreading the word about how great a contraceptive option it is.  New York Magazine is calling this phenomena “IUD Evangelism.”

Why is getting an IUD an almost spiritual experience?   “..learning about the IUD is like discovering that some benevolent God has been listening to your specific complaints about being a woman and will deal with them one at a time. Are you tired of refilling birth control prescriptions? Can’t remember where you left your pills? With the IUD, you’re baby-proof for up to ten years. (Doctors call it the “set it and forget it” method, like the rotisserie ovens sold on TV.) Do the hormones in birth control pills make you cry, as one IUD evangelist put it, “at the tiny hand in the March of Dimes commercial?” The copper IUD is hormone-free. Don’t trust him to pull out punctually? Sick of searching for the elusive Sponge? The IUD is as effective as sterilization until you take it out. (Although, as with tubal ligation, things happen.)”

Linda Prine, RHAP’s medical director, provides clinical background on why IUDs today are safer than previously available versions.  “The biggest upgrade to the IUD since the Dalkon Shield is in the one- to two-inch string threaded through the cervix to hang down into the vagina to ease removal, said Dr. Linda Prine, the medical director of Reproductive Health Access Project who trains family doctors in IUD insertion. In the past, the strings were made from a multifilament that “wicked” bacteria into the uterus. Now, Dr. Prine explained, the strings are made of monofilament that doesn’t facilitate the transfer of bacteria. The hormonal IUD, meanwhile, causes the body to produce — brace yourself — a cervical mucus that’s like a “plug” against infections.”

Read the entire article here.  Want to learn more about the IUD?  Check out RHAP’s clinical resources and patient education materials.  Or, email us!