Intra-uterine contraception is a useful method of fertility control, because of its applicability at all levels of socio-economic development and it has been the mainstay of the fertility control programme in many countries.

The present evaluation is based on the hospital follow-up records of 4067 IUD cases from randomly selected mission hospitals for the years 1967 and 1968. Of the insertions, 97·7% were non-post-partum, and 60% of the acceptors were from the age group 25–34 years with a median age of 29·8 years; nearly 70% had fewer than four living children. The pattern of distribution by religion is similar to that of the 1961 census figures.

The average number of women months (6·7) of IUD use is very low in a follow-up study of 24 months but is more or less consistent, both by age and parity.

The incidence of expulsion, removal and pregnancy was 8·2, 12·9 and 0·6 respectively for all ages and although these rates were higher with the 27½-mm loop than the 30-mm loop the differences are not statistically significant.

The rates of expulsion, removals and complaints were greatest during the first 6 months of use and decreased gradually with increase in duration of use.

Bleeding, or other symptoms associated with bleeding, were the main reasons for the removals.

Incidence of re-insertion was higher among those aged <25 years than among those aged ≥25 years and the difference in the proportion of re-insertions between the two age groups is statistically significant.

The size of the loop seems to have no bearing on the incidence of re-insertions.

Total termination rates at the end of 6, 12, 18 and 24 months were 9·9, 15·2, 25·0 and 55·9 per 100 first insertions respectively.