IUDs Are Used More Among Today's Modern American Woman

A new survey shows that more women in the United States are using longer-lasting birth control.

Options like intrauterine devices, or IUD, was the contraceptive of choice for 6.4 percent of American women between the ages of 15-44 from 2011 to 2013, according to a report published Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Though birth control pills still remain the most popular option among 16 percent of women, the growth for LARC, "is a pretty significant change in the contraceptive world," according to study co-author Amy Branum, via USA Today.

IUDs were previously not used due to safety concerns. However, a new version was reintroduced in the 1990s and caught on more rapidly in the 2000s.

These T-shaped devices that are implanted in the uterus for three to 10 years release hormones that help prevent pregnancy. Other matchstick-size arm implants that last up to three years release hormones in a similar fashion. Where the pill's failure rate is about 9 percent the devices have a rate of 1 percent or below.

Study findings from a 2014 study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology showed that about 40 percent of female family planning providers between the ages of 19 and 44 used IUDs, while just about six percent of women in the general population used an IUD or similar long-acting reversible contraception (LARC).

"The difference in contraceptive choices between providers and the general population is even higher than we expected," said Dr. Ashlesha Patel, lead study author, published Monday in the journal Contraception.