AUSTIN, TEXAS – , as compared with the same time period 1 year earlier, Aparna Sridhar, MD, reported.
Mr. Trump’s campaign promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act in the first 100 days of his presidency sparked concern in many young women that they would lose access to copay-free contraception. Therefore, based on news reports and data released by insurer AthenaHealth that noted a 19% increase in IUD insertion nationally between October and December 2016, Dr. Sridhar and her colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, retrospectively reviewed data on students requesting insertion of a long-acting contraceptive (LARC) at the university’s student health center in the 2 months before and after the 2016 presidential election.
In the 8 weeks prior to the November election, the UCLA doctors inserted 53 LARCs, the majority of which were levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine systems. In the 8 weeks after the election, that number jumped to 118 insertions, a 123% increase (P = .02), again with a preponderance of hormonal IUDs. There was no statistically significant difference in insertions in the same 2 time periods in 2015, said Dr. Sridhar, of the UCLA department of obstetrics and gynecology.
The investigators also looked at whether the increase they saw could be related to the common year-end practice of maximizing health insurance benefits and found a significant increase in LARC insertions from 2015 to 2016, she added.
She noted that the team continues to monitor LARC insertions to look for additional behavior patterns.
Dr. Sridhar disclosed no financial conflicts of interest related to her presentation.
SOURCE: Sridhar, A et al. ACOG poster presentation.