‘Doctors fitted a contraceptive coil without my consent’

By Elaine Jung
December 8, 2022 - BBC World Service

“When Bebiane was 21 years old, she went to have a coil fitted - only to hear the shocking news that there was already one inside her.

"I remember the tears rolling down my cheeks, and I told them that I couldn't understand how I already had a coil in me… How could I not remember when I had it put in?"

Bebiane believes the only time the coil could have been inserted without her knowing was when she had an abortion at the age of 16, in the early 2000's.

For the next four years she suffered from crippling spells of abdominal pain so severe that they left her unable to climb stairs.

"I went to the hospital so many times and they didn't know what was wrong with me… [The pain] came when I had my period, but it also came when I didn't have my period."

She wanted to get pregnant, but had still not conceived after more than a year.

"Every time I would get my period… I would cry," Bebiane tells me.

She decided to take a break from trying for a few months, and to get a coil fitted, as friends had advised her - wrongly - that this would boost her fertility.

This was when she made the discovery that one had already been fitted.

She had it taken out, abandoned plans for a new one, and fell pregnant within months.”

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