This Photo of a Newborn Holding His Mom’s IUD Is Going Viral—and Raising Questions

Intrauterine device (aka IUD) usage is way up in the U.S. these days, and for good reason: as a method of birth control, they’re 99 percent effective, last anywhere from five to 10 years, and don’t require any monthly maintenance. Of course, for every 99 percent effectiveness rating, there’s a 1 percent chance failure, and Alabama woman Lucy Hellein was one of those cases.

Hellein and her partner already have two children, so she got a Mirena IUD inserted in August, according to Metro. In December, she found out she was about 4 months along in her pregnancy. “IUD failures are quite rare, but they do happen,” Mary Jane Minkin, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale University tells Glamour. “Women can ovulate with a Mirena, however, basically sperm aren’t ‘allowed access into the uterus’ because of the progestin in the device—it creates a very hostile environment for sperm thinking about entering the vagina,” she explains. “Also, the lining of the uterus gets quite thin from the progestin, so pregnancies occurring are quite rare.”

Hellein told Metro that her Mirena “was nowhere to be found on ultrasound so my OB assumed that it had fallen out.” Hellein wasn’t so sure, though Dr. Minkin notes it is strange that the ultrasound wasn’t able to pick up evidence of the device. Of course, when Hellein’s son, Dexter Tyler, was born via C-section on April 27, her doctor uncovered the missing IUD in the now-viral photo. (Hellein has since deleted the original post, which had been shared more than 56,000 times).

“During the C-section my OB planned on searching for the MIA Mirena,” Hellein told Metro, which her doctor recovered behind her placenta. As to how it happened? “My guess is that the IUD somehow got dislodged into a lower part of the uterus, but it’s very difficult to know how it occurred,” says Dr. Minkin.

If you have an IUD and are afraid that you too might find yourself pregnant, don’t worry too much. “This should not discourage folks from getting an IUD,” says Dr. Minkin. “They are truly quite effective.”