There are lots of good reasons for women to space their babies at least two years apart. Studies show higher risks of premature birth, pregnancy complications and delivery problems, as well as higher death rates in the early years when babies are born very close together.
But in countries where there aren’t a lot of family planning options, women end up getting pregnant again sooner than they’d like.
One solution might be to provide cheap and easy access to contraception immediately after childbirth, suggests a small study in India. Using a new device, researchers were able to simplify the process of inserting an IUD — a type of long-acting contraceptive device that gets embedded into the top of the uterus, an area called the fundus.
The plastic t-shaped device blocks sperm from getting to eggs and either releases hormones that prevent the ovaries from releasing eggs or contains copper that is toxic to sperm. Both kinds are more than 99 percent effective at preventing pregnancy.
The study of the new device, which is the copper variety, found that both health care providers and women who had just given birth were satisfied with the experience.
“In 10 words or less, it worked,” says Paul Blumenthal, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford University School of Medicine in California and global medical director for Population Services International, a nongovernmental group in Washington, D.C., that helps with family planning in the developing world. “Almost to a person, when the provider takes it out of the package and is able to just insert it into the fundus of the uterus without a lot of rigmarole and extra steps, you always get, ‘Oh gosh, this is so simple.'”
