ABSTRACT
Copper-bearing devices There ought by rights to be a truly dramatic ‘come-back’ for intrauterine devices (IUDs) in the near future. Women in their thirties have not been requesting them because they were told, in their twenties, to avoid that method. However, a woman in her later reproductive years with, say, two children is the ideal user, especially if she is not yet sure that her family is complete: the devices have not changed but she has. Currently some doctors are complying too readily with requests for male or female sterilization which originate partly out of myths about this alternative. Leaving aside the significant advance represented by the LNG IUS, too few women know that the latest copper IUDs are in practice more, not less, effective than the COC.
