I laughed out loud when I read that in Simcha Fisher's latest post:
Of course, she may still want to follow up with a doctor if she experiences any of the common side effects of IUDs, such as severe cramps, infection, heavy bleeding, weight gain, irritability, uterine perforations, anemia, life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, and permanent infertility. One woman discovered that the IUD had wandered right into her liver, the rascal. And one woman ended up having her sternum cracked open to retrieve the device that had migrated all the way into her rib cage. Ha! Ladies and their lady problems.
But basically, other than that, it’s one of the safest medical choices a woman can make. Yes, it’s safe. Didn’t I tell you it was safe? Shut up and spread your legs, so I can aim this thing.
But as I read through to what she was writing about, I understood that this was anything but funny.
So what, pray tell and particularly, is Simcha talking about here?
The Bioceptive IUD inserter which looks alot like... well.. a damned assault weapon:
For a senior project in biomedical engineering at Tulane University, Ben Cappiello faced the task of
developing some kind of health care technology. In deciding what to pursue, he recalled talking to his mother, a nurse practitioner and nursing professor at the University of New Hampshire, about conferences she attended where people discussed the high effectiveness but complex insertion procedure and low usage rates of intrauterine devices for birth control.
"I was just a naive engineering student," said Cappiello, who was thinking, "'I can come up with a better way to do it.'"
He started working on a solution, a single device that replaces five separate tools and inserts IUDs with button pushes to complete each step. His senior project stretched into a start-up business, which Cappiello supported by working as a bartender. Looking for help launching the product, he teamed up with Shuchi "SK" Khurana, who moved to New Orleans in 2009 after gathering experience bringing patents to the market for a research and development firm in Ohio. Their company, called Bioceptive, moved into the New Orleans BioInnovation Center business incubator in 2011.
Bioceptive has been gaining attention in 2013. A Boca Raton, Fla., investor group called New World Angels announced in March that it would invest $1.1 million in Bioceptive along with First Light Ventures of Atlanta and Maryland-based Calvert Investments. In July an international grant program called Saving Lives at Birth announced Bioceptive qualified for $250,000 to finish readying its device for distribution.
"We're trying to really democratize IUD insertion, so that everyone can do them, anywhere," Cappiello said of Bioceptive's invention. "All you have to do is squeeze this lever."
Unlike traditional IUD insertion, the inserter doesn't require the medical training of obstetrician-gynecologists or nurse practitioners and seeks to avoid pitfalls such as perforations of the uterus or accidental, often undetected, expulsion of the IUD.
It eliminates steps. Instead of a potentially painful sharp clamp for pulling the uterus into position for insertion, it uses a suction mechanism. It still takes a health care provider to use it, but Cappiello and Khurana argue it's much simpler to learn for a wider range of caregivers.
Shouldn't there be a waiting period for them damned things? What about some sort of registration? And shouldn't there be background checks? Will we see Bioceptive IUD inserter shows coming to our neighborhoods?
Shouldn't there be an outcry as to this war against women and action demanded from our representatives?
For the sake of our children?
