IUDs are a safe and effective method of contraception. Why aren't we offering them to teens?
In the United States, this is related to health care providers' experiences with the Dalkon Shield, an IUD long gone from the market that was associated with pelvic infection and infertility. Modern IUDs are safe, highly effective, rapidly reversible, and are associated with neither infection nor infertility. The World Health Organization (http://bit.ly/9O2oBe) and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (http://1.usa.gov/Wkww0s) guidelines for contraceptive initiation state that age, parity, and relationship status are unrelated to client eligibility for modern IUDs. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists support IUDs as first-line contraception for adolescents (http://bit.ly/OJd2j1).
Health care providers are slowly changing their attitudes about this, but young women in the U.S. remain more likely to be offered an IUD if they are parous. It takes support from everyone working in a health care setting--front desk, manager, health educator, clinician and billing expert--to make IUDs truly accessible to young women.