Quote:
Originally Posted by DietVet
Re the not for women who haven't had children thing: the issue is the tightness of the cervix. The insertion is much more uncomfortable for those of us who've never had babies. (And I do mean OUCH!)
Not really, the FDA isn't concerned with minor things like that, it happily approves drugs with lots of unpleasant side effects for instance. (And there are lots of factors in how uncomfortable an IUD insertion can be. The main one is the experience of the doctor inserting it, and I think the next is the use of local anaesthetic, followed by the relaxation levels of the patient. A good IUD insertion is no worse than a smear test. IUDs are used successfully in lots of young nulliparous women, including teenagers, all over the world.) The reason that all IUDs are hard to get in the US and little-used there is the lawsuit culture. Back in the 70s, there was a very poorly designed IUD which was linked to some deaths. It was a completely different type of IUD to the type used today, and your chances of major problems are incredibly tiny if the IUD is inserted by a professional under sterile conditions on a woman who has consented to the procedure (sadly this is not the case for some parts of the world), but the terror of IUDs has lasted in the US decades past there being any actual reason for it. This means that in the US, it can occasionally still be tricky finding a doctor who will insert an IUD in a woman who hasn't had children/isn't married, but to be honest any doctor who is that ill-informed about IUDs isn't likely to be that experienced in inserting them and is best avoided anyway.