claim: Photograph shows a newborn baby clutching an IUD in his hand.
origin: On 28 April 2017, a mother proudly (and jokingly) displayed a photograph on her Facebook page showing her newborn baby clutching a Mirena-brand intrauterine birth control device (IUD) in his tiny hand, along with a caption that read, â€œMirena fail!â€ However, the babyâ€™s mother, LucyÂ Hellein, never said her child was born holding the IUD in his hand. Rather, she told First Coast News that doctors had known the IUD had remained in her uterus throughout her pregnancy but were unable to locate it. After it was found and removed during her c-section, it was â€œplaced in the hand on her son as a sort of tongue-in-cheek nod to conceiving while having an IUD inâ€ while a friend snapped the now-viral â€œcheeky photograph.â€ Dr. Leena Nathan, an OBGYN and assistant clinical professor for the University of California at Los Angeles told us IUDs are a highly effective birth control method. Although itâ€™s rare, doctors occasionally find failed ones in the uterus after a child is delivered. She said it would be impossible, however, for a newborn to be delivered holding such a device because there would be no way for the IUD to get inside the amniotic sac, a fluid-filled membrane that envelops a fetus while it grows inside the womb. Mirena, maker of the IUD, saysÂ on their web site that the device is over 99 percent effective at preventing pregnancy.