Abstract

PIP: Immediate postabortion period is a strategic time for providing contraceptive protection, especially insertion of IUD concommitent with the abortion procedure. One can be reasonably safe in assuming that copper T 200 may be used with comparable degrees of clinical effectiveness in such situations. A higher incidence of IUD removals for bleeding and IUD displacements in the postabortal insertion is justifiable when it is considered that a greater number of women are reached and thus protected against the risks of an unwanted pregnancy. Major problems such as cervical or uterine perforations were not associated with this type of insertion. IUD removal was effected in 5.39% for bleeding, and in 4.69% of cases where there was either complete or incomplete expulsion of the device. Expulsion rate was high within the 1st week of insertion, and it is reasonable to believe that abortion complications were responsible for this high expulsion rate. Even though IUD removal was not required, about 15% of the patients had menstrual irregularities at the end of 1 year of use. Embedding of the copper device did not pose any problem for removal of the device after 1 year of use and no fragmentation of copper wire was found in the IUDs removed. In those who wanted, conception had occurred within 4 months of removal of the device. The follow-up data suggests that the use-effectiveness of the device gradually increase with the duration of use and is found to be highest after 1 year of use.