TikTok has become a hotbed of birth control misinformation, with videos accumulating millions of views in which women blame their IUDs for pelvic floor dysfunction, autoimmune conditions, liver failure, and other conditions. In one video, the text reads: “I cannot believe my 'for you' page today. Every video is of a girl getting autoimmune/cancer from her IUD. Why did we pop birth control like candy because doctors told us to?”

Virtually all American women have used some form of birth control at some point in their lives, most commonly female sterilization, oral contraceptive pills, and long-acting reversible contraceptives like intrauterine devices (IUDs). These forms of birth control each carry risks, but doctors say they are sometimes taken out of context on social media. In some cases, users have falsely said that birth control can lead to infertility or cause abortions.

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Misinformation for various medical treatments circulates far and wide on the internet, and some doctors are concerned that the true risks of birth control are being misconstrued and might make women get off it when there are fewer options available for unintended pregnancies as states move to restrict abortion access after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022 with the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision.

“We want to respect our patients and not make decisions for them,” said Dr. Jenny Wu, an OB-GYN resident at Duke University who studies how birth control is discussed on social media. “We are really having to address these questions around mistrust and distrust with hormonal birth control while living in a state where we have much more limited access to abortion care.”

"IUDs have so many other benefits besides just contraception."

Some videos negatively discuss hormone therapies and prioritize “natural” new-age therapies instead. But this can also make patients more hesitant to get an IUD for conditions that they are sometimes recommended to treat, like endometriosis, heavy periods, fibroids or menopause, Wu said.

“IUDs have so many other benefits besides just contraception,” Wu told Salon in a phone interview. “Yet I worry that with all this negative content online, it's hard to talk about those other things that are beneficial about an IUD.”

In a study Wu published earlier this year in Obstetrics and Gynecology, videos on TikTok tagged with “#IUD” were more often negative than positive, with nearly all of them discussing pain or other side effects. In updated 2022 guidelines, the American College of Obstetricians........

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