Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The IUD: The Best Form of Birth Control is the One No One is Using

time.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 56 posts

Re: The IUD: The Best Form of Birth Control is the One No One is Using

#31

Post by nostrademons »

elemeno wrote: post #19
chollida1 wrote: post #10

From the chart in the article I'm surprised the pill has such a poor performance record of 6-12 pregnancies out of 100 women. When I was in high school, university and in my 20's almost all the women I knew were on the pill and I didn't hear once about an unplanned pregnancy or abortion. Infact all the women I know joked about how they were surprised when they went off the pill how easy it was for them to get pregnan…

Part of the performance record might well be due to not everyone taking the pill remembering to always take it. If you miss the odd day, I'd imagine that the chance of accidental pregnancy goes up a fair bit.

Also having to take it the same time every day, and the interaction between the pill and antibiotics. I've heard that many women don't realize that most antibiotics destroy the effectiveness of the pill, meaning that a back-up birth control method needs to be used in a cycle where she gets strep, or an ear infection, or a UTI, or many other common illnesses.

Re: The IUD: The Best Form of Birth Control is the One No One is Using

#33

Post by ozi »

From personal experience, this seems to be much more common among women closer to or over the age of 30.

Then again, I'm not sure I would trust a young twenty something I just met if she said she has an IUD. When an attractive, gainfully employed thirty-year-old who clearly doesn't want kids says she has an IUD it's much easier to believe.

Re: The IUD: The Best Form of Birth Control is the One No One is Using

#34

Post by TheCoelacanth »

ozi wrote: post #33

From personal experience, this seems to be much more common among women closer to or over the age of 30. Then again, I'm not sure I would trust a young twenty something I just met if she said she has an IUD. When an attractive, gainfully employed thirty-year-old who clearly doesn't want kids says she has an IUD it's much easier to believe.

If it's someone you just met, you probably should use a condom for STD prevention.

Re: The IUD: The Best Form of Birth Control is the One No One is Using

#35

Post by JustSomeNobody »

What about implants for men? Why do women always have to be the responsible(ish) ones?

Note: I say ish, because if people were responsible at all, we'd not have unplanned pregnancies. None 2: I'm a dude and I think it's horribly pathetic that men always expect women to 'deal' with this.

Re: The IUD: The Best Form of Birth Control is the One No One is Using

#36

Post by gjm11 »

sp332 wrote: post #27
mountainair wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, my question is: How does one use symptoms-based perfectly? My understanding is that a perfect use case happens only a few days each month. So on those few days, you might have very low "failure" rates, but on the other 25 days per month, is a "perfect use" possible?

It's not a few days, it's a week or two. And the "perfect use" on the other days is not to do anything that might get you pregnant!

In other words, "natural family planning" achieves its very low "perfect use" failure rate by solving a different (and easier) problem from the ones addressed by other methods.

It's easy (in principle) to solve the problem of avoiding pregnancy: "just" avoid all sexual activity. The problem contraceptives were invented to address wasn't the problem of avoiding pregnancy but the problem of having sex without getting pregnant.

"Natural family planning" is -- when done optimally -- very effective at the "without getting pregnant" part of that, but not so good on the "having sex" part, since somewhere around half the time it's equivalent to abstinence.

Redefining the problem isn't always a bad thing, but it's as well to be aware of when it's being done.

Re: The IUD: The Best Form of Birth Control is the One No One is Using

#37

Post by sp332 »

gjm11 wrote: post #36
sp332 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a few days, it's a week or two. And the "perfect use" on the other days is not to do anything that might get you pregnant!

In other words, "natural family planning" achieves its very low "perfect use" failure rate by solving a different (and easier) problem from the ones addressed by other methods. It's easy (in principle) to solve the problem of avoiding pregnancy: "just" avoid all sexual activity. The problem contraceptives were invented to address wasn't the problem of avoiding pregnancy but the problem of having sex without getting p…

That's fair as far as it goes. But you can mix NFP with other birth control methods to combine the advantages. Sex without condoms is valued by lots of people, so it's useful to know that even if you use condoms the rest of the time. On top of that, NFP can also help if you are trying to get pregnant.

Re: The IUD: The Best Form of Birth Control is the One No One is Using

#38

Post by needacig »

Funny, on my FB feed just last week a woman posted an X-ray or some such image with the caption "perforated uterus due to IUD migration" and another woman commented on her photo that it had happened to her too. I don't know how rare it is but that possibility alone would be enough to make me turn and run the other way. At least condoms generally won't perforate your internal organs.

Re: The IUD: The Best Form of Birth Control is the One No One is Using

#39

Post by gretful »

chollida1 wrote: post #10

From the chart in the article I'm surprised the pill has such a poor performance record of 6-12 pregnancies out of 100 women. When I was in high school, university and in my 20's almost all the women I knew were on the pill and I didn't hear once about an unplanned pregnancy or abortion. Infact all the women I know joked about how they were surprised when they went off the pill how easy it was for them to get pregnan…

keyword: "unplanned" - how many that did get pregnant did it with their fingers crossed?

Re: The IUD: The Best Form of Birth Control is the One No One is Using

#40

Post by xxxargs »

cauterized wrote: post #23

The IUD isn't problem-free. A lot of women have painful allergic reactions to the copper ones, and the hormone-based ones a) have hormones, which cause their own problems, and b) have a bad history of getting lodged in the wrong places and having to be surgically removed. Of course, in Europe and Asia, there is also a much broader range of options to choose from, which helps women select one that has fewer risks for…

^^^ This information is incorrect.

1) "A lot of women have painful allergic reactions to the copper ones" -- No. Copper allergies are rare and occur in less than 1% of the population, according to the FDA. If you suspect you have a copper allergy or are sensitive, you can do a simple patch-test on your arm before considering a copper IUD to check for copper reaction.

2) [IUDs] "have a bad history of getting lodged in the wrong places and having to be surgically removed" -- Also wrong. The most common occurrence of perforation is during insertion, and even then perforations during insertion happen in less than 0.001% of cases. I would not consider this a "bad history" or common occurrence.

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUD_with_copper & I have a hormonal IUD currently and have had copper before.

Your information about IUDs is over 50 years old, and is based on the copper "coil" IUD which hasn't been in use for decades. Current IUDs (both hormonal and copper) are extremely safe, effective, and perhaps the most error-proof and reliable form of birth control out there. The largest risk with an IUD is rejection, where your device falls out -- the solution is simple, it's just reinserted. The largest barrier to getting IUDs is the belief in the US that you need to have had children first, to have a cervix wide enough to tolerate insertion. This is also untrue. You can have an IUD at any time in your life, insertion is just much more painful if you haven't had children.

Additionally, you don't need to scan a woman's womb before having sex to confirm she has an IUD. You can usually feel the strings from the IUD (there for easy removal) at the top of the cervix, with your fingertips. And if you're a man worth half his salt, you'll have had the opportunity to... check that out before having sex with her ;)

Post reply on HN