THE intrauterine devices inserted into the womb to prevent pregnancies can get lost inside the body and wiggle their way up to the brain.
Well, no, of course they can’t. But this is the type of myth about IUDs that a few people believe. And it’s not just the uneducated who are getting it wrong. Even medical textbooks are riddled with mistakes, a survey by Eve Espey and Tony Ogburn of the University of New Mexico has revealed.
IUDs got a bad rap in the 1970s after a few women died from severe infections after miscarrying with the IUD in place. IUDs were then blamed for everything from an increased risk of ectopic pregnancies to pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility.
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Subsequent studies, however, have shown that while there is a small risk of infection soon after IUDs are inserted, there is no increased danger of ectopic pregnancies or infertility.
But this message doesn’t seem to have reached medical schools. Espey and Ogburn found that more than half of 18 medical textbooks published in the US and Britain between 1996 and 2001 still mentioned these risks, or stated that IUDs should be considered only as a last resort (Contraception, vol 65, p 389). And many doctors who teach students share these misconceptions, Espey says.
“The negativity about IUDs has just stuck,” says Marianne Parry of Marie Stopes International in London. In countries where there wasn’t so much bad press in the 1970s, the IUD is the most common contraceptive. But in the US, only 1 per cent of women use an IUD.
Espey thinks that’s a big mistake. “The number should be higher. We have the highest unintended pregnancy rate of any industrialised country.” A panel of 45 world experts at a conference in North Carolina last year agreed. In the same issue of Contraception, they call for an international campaign to get the facts about IUDs straight.
A lot of other information in medical textbooks is outdated or incorrect, Espey adds. But the problem is especially bad when it comes to sex education. “People don’t talk about it much. It’s the dreaded ‘s’ word,” says Parry.