New York Women Ditching other Birth control Methods for IUDs

 

Just set it — and forget it.

New York women are parting from the pill, breaking up with the patch and saying sayonara to the sponge. And no, these aren't women with a deep-seeded baby wish — they've all gotten IUDs.

 

The tiny intrauterine devices, which are implanted by a doctor or nurse practitioner, allow busy New Yorkers to ditch the daily ritual of taking the pill — or scramble for alternative methods when they forgot a dose.

"The pill was making sex with my husband a source of anxiety," one Queens-based writer who wished to remain anonymous told the Daily News. The scribe, now 36, had been on the pill for nearly a decade and "wanted a change."

After some research, she found Mirena, a popular plastic IUD, and calls it "fantastic." Others have discovered ParaGard, a copper IUD that is more than 99% effective at preventing pregnancy without hormones.

But why did it take so long for this renaissance of sorts?

FIRST THINGS FIRST

These long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) were christened by the American Academy of Pediatrics last month as the best birth control available for teens for their high success rates.

And doctors are telling young women to consider LARCs because they are completely reversible and boast low failure rates — less than 1%

But the movement has been building over the last several years. "Nationally, what we know is that IUD rates have been rising substantially," Dr. Laura Duberstein Lindberg, a senior research associate for the Guttmacher Institute, said, noting a 400% increase in the last decade, or from 2.4% to 8.5% in seven years, through 2009. Nearly all of those women used IUDs.

Birth control pills, patches and rings, on the other hand, fail up to 9% of the time — mostly due to user error. And many of these methods carry hormonal side effects, such as weight gain and moodiness.

That was a big turnoff for 25-year-old Nichole LeFebvre. "I had been on the pill since I was 16 or 17," the Park Slope resident said, and "was sick of what hormonal pills were doing to my body."

After some Internet research, LeFebvre went to her OB-GYN in 2012 to get a ParaGard — a T-shaped copper device devoid of hormones. "I wish I had known about it in high school," she lamented, adding that LARCs should be part of sex education. She's already convinced several of her girlfriends to take the plunge.

Women like LeFebvre are increasingly becoming interested in these continuous-acting tools that pack few side effects (so long, mood swings!) and are effective at preventing pregnancy for up to 10 years.

Data for New York City women using IUDs is not available, though city officials sang the praises of long-term birth control at a press conference last summer, showing a promising change in the tides of effective birth control measures.

Doctors are noticing the shift, too.

"I definitely have more patients asking for them in my practice," Dr. Laura MacIsaac, the director of Family Planning for the Mount Sinai Health System, told The News. "I think we'll see more and more, but I've already seen them go up a lot."

MacIsaac, who only sees teenagers at her practice, says that her patients "are now hearing about these methods," either through more visible marketing campaigns or through word of mouth.

"They are being marketed and as more teens are getting them, our patients are hearing about them from their peers," MacIsaac said.

Dr. Natasha Withers, a doctor of osteopathy with One Medical Group, agrees. "There's just a lot more awareness," she said. "I think the trust factor is big because people are nervous about the IUD procedure."