Not the Woman's Fault

Source: Kimberly Leonard

Today, women advocate for the choice to have birth control which is a good thing. Women should have the choice to get an intrauterine device (IUD) if they want one. But where this argument is lacking is when there isn't enough information about IUDs given to women. 

Most women are not aware of the side effects and complications that may arise with IUDs, and doctors are not always the most willing to give up that information or listen to women when they do experience complications.

When we don't fully understand a product this gives the producers of that product full control. They can create it in the easiest and quickest way so they can get large amounts of it out on the market. They don't think about how it will be used or if it's compatible with its users. This is the case for intrauterine devices.

The fact that birth control researchers thought that one shape of birth control can work for every woman has caused women the most harm. By assuming that one shape would fit all, this assumption made it easy for doctors and the producers of birth control to push the blame onto women if their IUD did not work out for them or completely dismissing women's pain. But there has to come a point where there is too many women with issues with the IUD to be fully on the blame of the women. There has to be a point where the IUD is at fault and women should be made aware of its potential complications and side effects. We cannot keep putting full blame onto women.

There have been many cases where women have experienced pain during insertion of an IUD or who experience their IUD being displaced. A lot of the time, these women are not even aware that their IUD has moved until they see their doctor. Rosalind Stone had gotten a copper IUD which caused her large amounts of pain before she was able to get it removed. When Stone went to another doctor to get the IUD removed, she was told that she should never have been fitted with such a large IUD. While cervix size does not affect whether an IUD works, it mainly affects whether the insertion process is more painful or not. When Stone had her IUD fitted, the doctor told her that he was competing with other doctors to reach higher years' worth of contraception prescribed. He had encouraged her to take the bigger IUD, which offers a higher number of years' protection.

This doctor dismissed any concern for Stone's personal health by encouraging her to take the bigger IUD so he could have a higher years' worth of IUD coverage. The fact that doctors were participating in a competition based on how many years they could get women to take contraception promoted behavior that is harmful to women. This leads doctors' main concern to be whether they can gain credibility within this community of doctors who are competing to be the leading prescriber of contraception.

When Melissa Petro went to have her IUD removed in 2012, she learned that it had migrated out of place. Her doctor encouraged her to leave it in because she didn't have a backup birth control method. When she finally went to have her IUD removed, she learned that the IUD had become embedded in her uterine lining leaving her with symptoms of nausea, vomiting, bleeding, and cramping.

When women are given IUDs without enough information, they are at an increased risk of having complications. When these IUDs are poorly researched with the idea that one size will fit all, they can cause severe pain to women who these IUDs will not work for. Competition being promoted among doctors with IUDs also leads to a higher risk of pain. This increases their risk because doctors will be concerned with their ranking in this race to be the leading prescriber of contraception that they will disregard all the potential risks for pain and will not make women fully aware of all potential complications. In general, there is a complete disregard for women's health and safety within the entire spectrum of IUDs.

Doctors have frequently dismissed women's pain and told them to not worry if the IUD has been displaced. Doctors have been more concerned with their prescription of IUDs than with their patients' safety. In the first case, Rosalind Stone went to get her IUD removed and the doctor found that the IUD had gone missing. He figured that it had been expelled from her vagina and that no removal was necessary, dismissing her lingering pain. After Stone convinced her doctor to schedule an ultrasound, the IUD was revealed to still be inside her. This doctor thought he knew what had happened with the IUD and did not think there was any reason for her pain so he just dismissed it. In the second case, Melissa Petro's doctor had encouraged Melissa to leave the IUD in after finding that it had moved out of place.

This dismissal of women's feelings and pain in combination with the lack of information results in women blaming themselves. After learning that her IUD had become embedded in her uterine lining, Melissa thought it was her fault. She thought that she should have gotten it removed sooner, should have gone for more regular check-ups, or just had not gotten the IUD in the first place. But she was not told of the potential side effects of the IUD. There was no way for Melissa to have known that this could have happened because her doctor never told her it could. The fault really lies with the doctors and the birth control researchers.

There is a good number of women who have gotten an IUD and it worked just fine for them. But, the issue is that there is a growing number of women who have had serious complications with this IUD. Granted it may be impossible to create a perfect IUD that works for everyone, but women should at least be made aware that there is a possibility that the IUD may lead to serious complications. I am not promoting the idea of creating a perfect IUD - which would be great, but highly unlikely - I am simply saying that women need to know the side effects and these IUDs need to be created with their users in mind. 

In creating this product, birth control researchers should have taken into consideration that one size fits all was not the solution here. In giving out this product, doctors should have recognized that these women need to know all of the potential side effects or complications these IUDs come with, so they can make an informed decision about whether to get one or not. Competition among doctors and birth control researchers needs to be erased because it is just hurting women.


Sources:
Takeshita, C. (2012). The global biopolitics of the iud. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
https://theweek.com/articles/681863/got-iud-nightmare 
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/xyenn4/when-iuds-go-terribly-wrong-mirena
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/democratic-congresswomen-slam-proposed-birth-control-rule