Study: Female sterilization
isn't foolproof
April 24, 1996
Web posted at: 1:30 a.m. EDTFrom Correspondent Andrew Holtz
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- When women have had all the bundles of joy they can handle and want to declare an end to their potential for new motherhood, tubal sterilization or tubal ligation is a popular option.
However, a long-term study of more than 10,000 women has revealed -- to everyone's surprise -- that tubal sterilization is not quite as foolproof as once thought. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study, one woman out of every 50 who had been sterilized became pregnant within 10 years of sterilization.
Researchers said some 10 million women in the U.S. have had tubal ligations, more women than currently use birth control pills or any other type of contraception. These new statistics suggest that almost 200,000 of them could become pregnant within a decade after their surgery.
"Many of those pregnancies occurred years after the sterilization operation," explained Dr. Herbert Peterson of the CDC. "We believed before that most pregnancies occurred in the first year or two, and most studies had been limited to one to two years, so that's why to this point, the risk of pregnancy has been underestimated."
Doctor Yvette Martin of Atlanta Women's Specialists said that despite the new statistics, she expects demand for tubal ligations to remain high. Martin said she has long recommended that couples consider a vasectomy for the man, often to no avail.
"Many of our patients are here because their partners won't have a vasectomy, won't consider having a vasectomy, won't talk about a vasectomy," said Martin. She doubted that the new study would "shift that discussion."
Even with the latest discovery about tubal sterilization, Lisa Borders-Marbury said she is still ready to trade her Norplant contraceptive implants for the procedure.
"Even though it's a very final step, I've had my children, I'm comfortable that I don't have to have anymore," said Borders-Marbury. "And rather than trying to decide every year, every three years, every five years what I want to do, I'm ready to be done with it and move on.
"I'm not really concerned that I would have that difficulty (pregnancy after sterilization). I know its potentiality, but there's no guarantees in life, none whatsoever. So as long as I have a good doctor, and I'm confident, it'll be OK."
One-third of the pregnancies in the study were ectopic, or tubal, pregnancies which are potentially life-threatening to the women. The researchers stressed that women and their doctors should investigate any signs of pregnancy even years after this surgery, intended to permanently seal the door to motherhood.
Related Story
Related Sites
- Centers for Disease Control
- Voluntary Sterilization - information from U.S. Health Care
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