You’re sure that you don’t want to have children moving forward — so sure that you’re contemplating a sterilization procedure in the form of tubal ligation.
Each year in the United States, about 700,000 women have this sterilization procedure done, and a total of 11 million women between the ages of 15 and 44 rely on tubal ligation as their way of preventing unwanted pregnancy.
At Capital Women’s Care, our skilled team of gynecology experts offers female sterilization and, in this blog post, we want to review a few points we bring up with our patients before making this important decision.
During a tubal ligation, we tie or clip off your fallopian tubes to prevent your eggs from becoming fertilized and reaching your uterus. Once we perform this procedure, you should consider it irreversible. Technically, this isn’t entirely true, but the reversal process for a tubal ligation is incredibly complex and not always successful.
We bring this important point up because after Roe v. Wade was overturned, there was an immediate increase in tubal ligation procedures in the US, especially among women under the age of 30. This is an early age to be making this decision especially in light of the fact that 12% of women who have tubal ligations regret having the procedure.
Tubal ligation offers extremely good protection against future pregnancy, but it’s not perfect. The rate of pregnancy after tubal ligation is about 1 out of 1,000 after the first year and 2-10 out of 1,000 after 5 years.
While the chances of getting pregnant are small, if you do get pregnant, it will likely be an ectopic pregnancy.
We perform a tubal ligation using minimally invasive techniques whenever possible, but it’s still surgery. If you have a partner and he’s willing to undergo a vasectomy, this is a route you might also consider. Each year in the US, about half a million men get vasectomies, and the procedure takes mere minutes during an in-office visit.
Lastly, while tubal ligation can do a great job in preventing pregnancy, it does not offer any protection against sexually transmitted infections. Only condoms and abstinence can accomplish that.
While we focused on potential pitfalls above, there are many upsides to sterilization. Besides offering superior protection against pregnancy, tubal ligation can also:
If you want to explore further whether sterilization is the best choice for your reproductive goals, we encourage you to contact one of our three conveniently located offices in Frederick and Mount Airy, Maryland, to schedule an appointment.
