Objective  To explore the occurrence of adverse pregnancy outcomes in fertile population after discontinuation of contraceptive measures.

  Methods  Totally 2 435 women (mean age = 29.69 years) intending to have their second child after discontinuation of contraceptive measures were recruited when taking pre-pregnancy health examinations at maternal and child health care institutions in 3 counties of Jiangsu province from January 2014 to December 2015. The women using intrauterine device (IUD) before terminating contraception were assigned into an observation group (n = 1 252) and those using condoms were assigned into a control group (n = 1 183). First follow-up interviews for pregnancy outcomes among all the women were carried out 30 months after the pre-pregnancy health examinations and continuous follow-ups every 3-month were conducted till September 30, 2017. Multivariate logistic regression model was adopted in analyses on correlates of pregnancy outcomes.

  Results  Among all the women during the follow up study, a total of 273 adverse pregnancy outcomes (APOs) were observed; the incidence of APOs was 11.21% and the incidence was not significantly different between the observation and control groups (11.26% vs 11.16%, P = 0.935). After adjusting potential confounding factors such as demographics, menstrual disorder, characteristics of female reproductive system, and children′s health conditions, the risk of APOs of the women with IUD (odds ratio = 1.06, 95% confidence interval: 0.81 – 1.38) was slight higher but not significant than that of women with condoms.

  Conclusion  Usage of intrauterine device does not increase the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes among child-bearing women.