If you have had your tubes tied you may be wondering about a pregnancy after tubal ligation. Your concern may come from one of two sources. First off, while you have been told that tubal ligation is a permanent form of birth control, you may have heard stories of women still getting pregnant. That can be scary and something you are totally unprepared to have happen.
The second source of your wondering may be the fact that you want a pregnancy after tubal ligation. For many reasons there is a percentage of women who change their minds. Maybe their marital situation has changed. Maybe there is guilt about not being "whole". Maybe they have been suffering from post tubal ligation syndrome and their lives are just miserable. Maybe the worst of all, a child has died and the family no longer feels complete. There are any number of reasons for this change of heart.
In the first scenario above, where you might fear you could still get pregnant, you should know that it is possible. However, the likelihood is very small. Less than 2 women out of 100 get pregnant following a tubal ligation. This was the outcome of a recent study. That's the good news.
The bad news is that if you are in that very small group, there is a high possibility that you will have an ectopic pregnancy. An ectopic pregnancy is where the fetus implants somewhere other than the uterus. Maybe there is enough blockage to keep it from reaching the uterus. It's also possible to attach somewhere outside the fallopian tube.
What this means is that if you do show any signs of having a pregnancy after tubal ligation, get to your doctor ASAP. Left untreated, an ectopic pregnancy can lead to all kinds of problems, up to and including being a threat to your life. If caught quickly, a drug is used to stop the development. Otherwise, you may be looking a surgery.
Now for the second scenario we look at women who want another pregnancy after tubal ligation. For whatever reason, you may have changed your mind. In this case, you will be happy to know that tubal ligation is not necessarily the permanent form of birth control you were told. In fact, you can find tubal surgeons who will perform an operation known as tubal reversal.
However, you will want to be very sure that you find a tubal reversal doctor who is very experienced at this procedure. DO NOT select a surgeon who only performs a handful, if that many, of these a year. You chances for a successful reversal will be greater with a more experienced surgeon who has seen everything.
Better yet would be selecting a tubal surgeon who works at a tubal reversal center or clinic where that operation is all they do. If you go to a fertility clinic that also has IVF, that is what they will push on you. After all, it costs more. Unfortunately for all that cost, it is less successful for any one cycle than tubal reversal thus usually requiring more cycles at even greater cost.
About the Author: If you wish a pregnancy after tubal ligation, check out the Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center. They have performed thousands of tubal ligation reversals and cannot be beat for their attention to you. Check out the site at http://www.tubal-reversal.net/ to see what I mean.
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