(Reuters) – A growing number of U.S. women appear to be opting for intrauterine devices (IUDs) as their birth control method, with the number more than doubling in just two years in one study.
Researchers, whose findings were published in the journal Fertility & Sterility, said this is good news, since IUDs and contraceptive implants are the most effective forms of reversible birth control.
But in the United States they are still far from popular, with use lagging well behind birth control pills and condoms.
The study found that in 2009, 8.5 percent of U.S. women using birth control chose an IUD or implant, with the large majority going with the IUD. That was up from just under four percent in 2007.
“We saw some pretty notable growth,” said lead researcher Lawrence B. Finer of the Guttmacher Institute in New York, a sexual and productive health organization.
In France and Norway, about one-quarter of women on birth control use IUDs or implants, and in China 41 percent, Finer’s team said.
