Six-month expulsion of postplacental copper intrauterine devices placed after vaginal delivery.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Copper (Supplement), published as an observational study.

The researchers sought to determine the proportion of TCu380A (copper) intrauterine devices expelled, partially expelled, malpositioned, and retained, as well as contraceptive use by 6 months postpartum, and determine risk factors for expulsion and partial expulsion.

The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve was used to assess the ability of a string check to predict the correct placement of a postplacental intrauterine device.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as young adults and adults, women only.

In this prospective, observational study, women who received a postplacental TCu380A intrauterine device at vaginal delivery were enrolled postpartum.

Participants returned for clinical follow-up at 6 weeks, and for a research visit with a pelvic exam and ultrasound at 6 months.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers recorded intrauterine device outcomes and 6-month contraceptive use.

Partial expulsion was defined as an intrauterine device protruding from the external cervical os, or a transvaginal ultrasound showing the distal end of the intrauterine device below the internal os of the cervix.

The primary outcome was the proportion of intrauterine devices expelled at 6 months.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Area Under Curve, Contraceptive Agents, Delivery, Obstetric, Gestational Weight Gain, Intrauterine Device Expulsion, Intrauterine Device Migration and Intrauterine Devices, Copper.

The authors tagged it with the keywords TCu380A intrauterine device, copper intrauterine device, intrauterine device complication, intrauterine device retention, long-acting reversible contraception and postpartum contraception.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is an observational study of Copper (Supplement).

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 15 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2018 (American journal of obstetrics and gynecology), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Copper (Supplement) compound page, all human trials.