ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS Contraceptive Use Before and After Gastric Bypass: a Questionnaire Study

# The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Background At present, women are recommended to avoid pregnancy 12–18 months after bariatric surgery. Our aim in this study was to describe patterns of contraceptive use before and after gastric bypass in Sweden, and to describe the con-traceptive counseling given preoperatively to women under-going gastric bypass. Methods In October 2012, a questionnaire was sent to 1000 Swedish women who all had undergone gastric bypass during 2010. The women had been included in the Scandinavian Obesity Surgery Register at time of surgery. The main out-come measures were patterns of use of contraception before and after bariatric surgery. Results The response rate was 57 %. The most commonly used contraceptive methods were intrauterine devices, 29 % preoperatively and 26 % postoperatively even though there was a postoperative switch from the copper intrauterine device to the levonorgestrel intrauterine system. Thirty percent did not use any contraceptive during the first 12 months after surgery. Sixty percent of the responders were aware of the recommendations to avoid pregnancy after surgery. Conclusions Many women who undergo bariatric surgery are not using any contracept ive method despi te the recommendation that they should avoid pregnancy for at least 12 months. There is a great need to improve contraceptive counseling for this growing group of women