Long-acting contraception demand grew drastically after Trump election

Feb. 5 (UPI) -- Soon after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, the number of women receiving IUD insertions to prevent pregnancies skyrocketed, a new study says.

Within 30 days after the election, the number of women receiving long-acting, reversible contraception, or LARC, implants shot up by nearly 22 percent versus rates at the same point the prior year, according to results published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

"From a reproductive health standpoint, Trump's opposition to the Affordable Care Act could have posed several concerns for women," Lydia Pace, a researcher of Women's Health at Brigham and Women's Hospital, told UPI.

"If the ACA were repealed, women (and men) could lose health insurance. Also, the ACA also required that most private insurance plans provide contraceptive coverage without cost-sharing (without out of pocket costs)," Pace said.

Pace and a team of researchers analyzed insurance data for three million women between ages 18 and 45.

The daily rate of prescription changed from 13.4 per 100,000 women leading up to the election to 16.3 per 100,000 women after Nov. 8.

The researchers think this sudden jump stemmed from fears that President Trump might gut the Affordable Care Act of protections offered for women's contraception and other reproductive services.

"So, if the ACA were repealed, privately insured women would lose the contraceptive coverage guaranteed by the ACA," Pace said. "There are certainly other reproductive health concerns facing privately and publicly insured women as well as uninsured women but I suspect concerns about the contraceptive mandate were the major drivers behind the trend we saw."

In 2017, President Trump stripped the portion of federal health law that required employers to provide coverage for birth control, according to U.S. Health and Human Service. However, this January a federal judge ruled temporarily to keep the provision a part of federal law.

"It suggests that women's contraceptive choices are or can be influenced by political events. It also suggests that privately insured women in the U.S. value contraceptive coverage. I think this is an important message for the public and for policymakers," Pace said.