A mother-of-two has fallen pregnant after her birth control implant apparently got lost in her arm.
Ebony Cole, from Denver, Colorado, said that after struggling through tough pregnancies with her children – five-year-old Jayden and seven-month-old Aaliyah – she and her husband decided they did not want any more children in the near future.
So Mrs Cole went to Kaiser Permanente medical office to be fitted with a hormone implant, Nexplanon, which is 99 per cent effective at preventing pregnancy according to its manufacturers.
When it was placed into Ebony’s upper left arm, the healthcare provider asked her to confirm that she could feel it, CBS Denver reported.
‘And I felt it, it was there,’ she told the channel.
She left with a sticker confirming she’d had the implant and that its effectiveness would expire in January 2018.
But in April Mrs Cole went to her doctor and learned she was five weeks pregnant.
‘I said, “How? This doesn’t make sense. I have this thing in my arm,”‘ she recalled.
She returned to the clinic and was told that staff could not find the implant in her arm. She then did a blood test but there were no traces of the progestin hormone that the implant emits.
With this result, doctors told her that the implant must not be in her arm.
‘I personally believe that it’s still there,’ Cole said.
‘I watched you put it in my arm. I felt it after you got done putting it in my arm. I had it wrapped up, there were bandages around the bandage she put on there.’
She added that she is fearful that the implant may hurt her unborn child. She is now 14 weeks pregnant.
Merck, the company that manufactures Nexplanon, said that patients and nurses must confirm that the implant has been inserted.
‘Immediately after the Nexplanon implant has been placed, you and your healthcare provider should check that the implant is in your arm by feeling for it,’ the website says.
‘If you and your healthcare provider cannot feel the Nexplanon implant, use a non-hormonal birth control method (such as condoms) until your healthcare provider confirms that the implant is in place.’
It continues: ‘The implant may not be in the patients’ arm at all due to failed insertion. If this happens, you may become pregnant.’
DailyMail.com has asked the company for more information about failed insertions and how often they occur.
Spokesman Kaiser Permanente told CBS Denver: ‘The care and safety of our patients is our highest priority. Any concern raised involving a patient’s care is taken seriously and will be fully investigated.’
