“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 in Gynecological Surgery, doctors Gao, Lacue, and Brandi describe a procedure they recently performed on a 22-year-old woman, who at 22 weeks pregnant, required laparoscopic surgery to remove a copper IUD that had become displaced and embedded in her small bowel. “
“Was this young woman ever warned that potential migration and perforation of other internal structures or organs is a risk one faces with an IUD? Many of the women who have shared their IUD stories with us at IUDAlert and for Spotlight on America report feeling blindsided by such serious complications, never having been informed by their doctors that such risks were possible. Consider, too, that not all women who have an IUD necessarily consented to its implantation (as is the case with Uighur women enduring forced population control by the Chinese government), and that some women who desire to have their IUDs removed cannot because of doctor refusal (as African women’s health activist Uju Ekeocha has highlighted) or other coercive circumstances (as Brittney’s Spears’s recent conservatorship battles highlight). “