Quick Hit: Why don’t more American women use IUDs?

Y’all already know that I am an IUD evangelist. While more American women are jumping on the bandwagon these days–8.5 percent of female contraception users in the US now choose long-lasting reversible contraceptive methods like the IUD and implant–we still seriously lag behind other countries.
IUD usage in different countries
At Mother Jones, my colleague Maddie Oatman reports on why it’s “been hard for young women in the United States to get their hands on this type of birth control”–and how that could be changing thanks to no co-pay birth control and a growing awareness among doctors that the IUD can be a good option for women of all ages. Check it out.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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