What You Need to Know

When you have your time period, you may perhaps prefer employing a menstrual cup instead of tampons or pads. Menstrual cups are turning into a lot more common since they are reusable, prolonged lasting, and eco-helpful.

But if you have an IUD, there are a number of factors to look at just before you use a menstrual cup.

What Is a Menstrual Cup?

A menstrual cup is a little, versatile cup you put in your vagina to acquire blood when you have your time period. It’s usually designed of silicone or rubber.

Contrary to tampons and pads, a cup does not take in the blood that flows from your uterus. In its place, it collects the blood. You vacant the cup when it is whole or if it leaks, about each individual twelve several hours or so. You take away the cup, vacant it, rinse it, and put it again in until finally the end of your time period.

There are strengths of employing a menstrual cup instead of tampons or pads. It’s effortless to use the moment you get the hold of it. It costs a lot less than other procedures, creates a lot less waste, has no odor, and does not want to be altered as generally.

“It’s all about flexibility for menstruating people,” states Nicole E. Williams, MD, a gynecologic surgeon at the Gynecology Institute of Chicago.

There are downsides way too. It may perhaps be hard for you to put in and consider out. It can also be messy. You have to sterilize the cup just after each and every time period. Not all menstrual cups match completely.

And if you have an intrauterine device, or IUD, it may well get dislodged if the menstrual cup pulls on the strings. If your IUD arrives out of place, you may well get pregnant.

Must You Use a Menstrual Cup With an IUD?

“The speedy reply up until finally recently was yes, it is harmless,” states Shieva Ghofrany, MD, co-founder of the women’s health and fitness site A Tribe Identified as V. “The IUD sits inside the uterine cavity, although the menstrual cup sits inside the vagina.” If they are in different locations, they shouldn’t interfere with a person a further.

Right until recently, professionals believed employing a menstrual cup was no riskier than employing a tampon or pad with an IUD. A 2011 research uncovered that gals who applied a menstrual cup didn’t have more risk of getting rid of their IUD.

But more recent study suggests there may perhaps be a lot more risk. In April 2020, a research published in Obstetrics & Gynecology uncovered that gals who applied a menstrual cup had a better charge of dislodging their IUD than gals who applied tampons or pads.

While it was only a person research, Ghofrany states, it does necessarily mean we want to preserve it in thoughts. It’s crucial to know how to use your menstrual cup the correct way.

How to Use a Menstrual Cup With an IUD

Just take these methods to decreased the odds of your IUD coming out when you use a menstrual cup:

• Maintain your menstrual cup absent from your IUD strings. “Be sure the strings don’t get caught in in between the edge of the cup and your vaginal wall, where they can get pulled on when your cup is coming out,” Ghofrany states. They must be inside your cup.
• Check out for changes in your strings. Test your strings frequently. If you know how they usually experience, it’ll be simpler to know if anything changes. If they are lengthier than typical, for example, it may perhaps be a sign your IUD has moved.
• Request your medical professional for shorter strings. They can slice your IUD strings to a far better length for you. “Make sure your IUD string isn’t so prolonged that when you take away your cup, the IUD receives tugged out together with it,” Williams states.
• Crack the seal. Your menstrual cup must make suction when you put it in. When you are ready to consider it out, make sure you crack the seal initial. If you don’t, you may perhaps induce way too substantially force, and that can dislodge your IUD. Check out urgent your cup into a C-form just before you consider it out so you don’t have to pull on the foundation.
• Get the correct sizing. Not all cups have the same match. Some makes may perhaps sit decreased in your vagina, although other folks are better and closer to your cervix. Request your medical professional which a person is best for you.
• Contemplate an option. Check out a menstrual disc instead of a menstrual cup. It’s a lot less probable to have an effect on your IUD since it works by using a lot less suction.

Communicate to your medical professional about which menstrual cup is correct for you and what you can do to decreased the likelihood of moving your IUD.