Intergenerational Narratives of the Intrauterine Device: A Culture-Centered Approach to Female Contraception in Contemporary China

Intrauterine devices (IUDs) were widely promoted in China during the family planning era and became a central contraceptive technology shaping women's reproductive experiences. Guided by the culture-centered approach, this study examines how contraceptive knowledge and bodily experiences related to the IUD are communicated across generations within families. Based on in-depth interviews with mothers and daughters, the study analyzes how structure, culture, and agency interact in shaping intergenerational health communication about IUDs. The findings show that state family planning policies and institutional medical practices structured the widespread adoption of IUDs among the mothers' generation, while cultural norms of female endurance and sexual modesty produced communicative silence around reproductive suffering within families. As daughters attempt to understand these experiences, intergenerational conversations often unfold through questioning, minimization, and stalled negotiation. Younger women increasingly draw on digital media to reinterpret maternal experiences and to challenge the gendered distribution of contraceptive responsibility. By foregrounding mother daughter dialogue, this study extends the culture-centered approach by showing how reproductive knowledge is transmitted, contested, and renegotiated through everyday family communication.