Publication:

Immediate postpartum insertion of intrauterine devices: experience of maternity ward of the university and teaching hospital of Treichville, Abidjan

Background In Côte d’Ivoire, where the rate of undesired pregnancies is high, we were the first Maternity centre, to benefit from training on immediate postpartum insertion of intrauterine devices (IUD).  The objective of this study is to share our experience and present the results of this practice in our hospital.

Methods It was a prospective and descriptive cohort study from the 11th of November 2013 to the 30th of April 2016 including the patients who delivered at the maternity of CHU Treichville (University Hospital Centre, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire), and had immediate postpartum IUD insertion, with a control 6 weeks later and then 3 months later.

Results 790 IUD have been, inserted to women with average age and gravidity of respectively 31.3 years old (13-52 years) and 4.4 (1-12 pregnancies). Most of our patients had a low socioeconomic status (poor education: 51.1%; not married: 59.9%). The counseling occurred during the latent phase of the labour for 57.2% of the women and the major parts of the IUD (59, 1%) were insert during a caesarean section. We noticed a poor rate of default patients (14 lost after 3 months), no complications but 9% of side effects (spontaneous expulsion, missing string). During the follow up period, four patients decided to remove the device. One of them for pelvic pain and three for a non-motivated request of the patients.

Conclusions Our experience shows that on immediate postpartum insertion of IUD is possible in our environment.