Medical Examiner

Finally, a New Kind of Copper IUD

There are so few options for long-acting birth control in the U.S. that some women go to Canada to get them.

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Miudella and Adobe Stock.

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Vanessa was searching for birth control, but she was coming up short. She’d used a Mirena IUD in her early 20s, but she’d found the device to be uncomfortable—perhaps too large for her uterus. Vanessa also has a genital pain condition that some hormonal contraceptives exacerbate, so she was looking for a nonhormonal option. There were shockingly few available. In fact, because she wanted a longer-acting contraceptive, there was only one: the Paragard copper IUD, a device approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1984.…