Tubal Reversal Blog ‘falope ring’

We are interrupting our 14 part Post Tubal Ligation Syndrome (PTLS) blog series to announce the first reported Monteith tubal reversal pregnancies and the arrival of the Monteith Miracle Tubal Reversal baby shirts!

Dr. Monteith’s Success at Reversing Tied Tubes

Dr. Charles Monteith started working full time as a tubal reversal specialist on July 21st 2008 at Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center. We have received four pregnancy reports from patients during his first two weeks of reversing tied tubes.  His tubal reversal pregnancies have started to roll in!

The First Pregnancies

These four patients are representative of the patient population Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center and they come from all across the United States. They have had different types of tubal ligations and tubal lengths measuring from 3 to 8.5 cms.

Alaska (Falope ring tubal ligation)
New York (Bipolar cautery)
North Carolina (Bipolar cautery)
Idaho (Filshie clip tubal ligation)

And The Winner Is…

There has been an unofficial competition among patients of our Tubal Reversal Message Board for who would be the first patient to report a Monteith tubal reversal pregnancy. A patient from Alaska was the first to report a positive pregnancy test. She has confirmed that a first trimester ultrasound showed the pregnancy is in the uterus and is doing well. We have asked her to share her story and experience with us in a future blog article and she has said she will do this once her life calms down and her morning sickness disappears.

Why Have Pregnancies Been Reported So Soon?

These pregnancies have all occurred within the first two weeks of his reversing tied tubes. We typically ask our patients to wait a month until they try to conceive. So these patients likely started to attempt to conceive mid to end of August. They obviously had success and conceived at their first ovulation after ligation reversal!

To the patients of Dr. Monteith who have not yet conceived: keep up the faith and it should happen in due time. Most people do not realize how long it may take to become pregnant until they actually try. It can sometimes take up to 10-12 months before a successful conception can occur.

Monteith Miracle Tubal Reversal Baby Shirts

The Monteith Miracle Shirts have just arrived and are hot off the presses. They are ready to be sent out when the babies are delivered. All you have to do to receive one is:

Be a patient of Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center.
Be a tubal reversal patient of Dr. Montieth.
Become pregnant after tubal reversal.
Report the pregnancy to us.
Report the birth to us.

The first shirt goes out April of 2009 and the rest shortly thereafter. We wish these women good luck and all of the women who have had tubal ligation reversals by the tubal reversal doctors at Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center.

A recent discussion on the Tubal Reversal Blog was about the Ethics of Tubal Ligation. This was regarding a patient who had been sterilized when she was 24 years old and had no children. She changed her mind in her thirties and came to Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center for a reverse sterilization procedure. Her fallopian tubes had been electrocoagulated extensively and the reversal operation was a difficult one to perform, requiring tubal implantation into the uterine cavity.

One of today’s patients is a 26 year old who had a tubal ligation at age 22 and had never had children. The doctor who performed her tubal ligation first applied Falope rings to the tubes, then proceeded to burn them in several locations. In her case, tubal reversal was not possible at all. During her operation, I wondered why any doctor would perform such a destructive type of tubal ligation for a young woman with no children. The Falope ring alone would have been sufficient to prevent pregnancy, yet allow reversal at a later time if she changed her mind about having children. Fortunately, she has the option of treatment by IVF. Still, why would a doctor perform an operation that essentially destroyed the tubes in such a young woman when there are a variety of other less destructive procedures for performing a tubal ligation? Is this ethical medical treatment?

I am very interested in what others think about this issue. Please leave your comments!!

More about Tubal Ligation Ethics

Submitted by Gary S. Berger, M.D.

Tubal Ligation by Falope Ring and Hulka Clip

The Falope ring and Hulka clip are occlusive methods of tubal ligation. They block the fallopian tubes, but no tubal segments are clamped, removed, or burned. The Falope ring is also referred to as the tubal ring or tubal band. It constricts a segment of the fallopian tube very tightly, like an extra strong rubber band.

The Hulka clip is a miniature clamp placed across a very small (2-3 mm) segment of the fallopian tube. Another clip method besides the Hulka clip is the Filshie clip. The clips are similar except that the Hulka clip is made out of silastic and the Filshie clip is made out of metal. Occlusive methods of tubal ligation are predictably the best in terms of reversal since they damage such a tiny segment of the fallopian tube.

In contrast to the Pomeroy method, these occlusive devices are applied through a laparoscope. (Laparoscopy involves making a small incision below the belly button.) Many doctors prefer to apply tubal rings or clips when performing a tubal ligation on young women in recognition of the greater likelihood that a tubal reversal may be wanted in the future. Studies have shown that tubal ligation regret and the desire for tubal ligation reversal is more common when a tubal sterilization is performed among women in the twenties than among older women.

Tubal Clip and Ring Reversal Success

Each year Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center publishes current statistics about pregnancy rates and pregnancy outcomes among all of the women who have had tubal reversal procedures performed by Dr. Berger. The data for women who had tubal rings or clips shown in the table below is from our Tubal Reversal Pregnancy Study Report 2007.

Pregnancy Rates of Our Tubal Reversal Patients

The overall pregnancy rate after tubal reversal for women with clips or rings is 76% for patients at Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center. In the table below, the first column shows ages groups. The second column shows the number of women in each age group who had a tubal reversal. The third column shows the number of women in that group who became pregnant and the last column shows the percentage of women who became pregnant (the pregnancy rate) after their reversal procedures.

Pregnancy Rates After Tubal Reversal of Clips/Rings

Highest Pregnancy Rates After Tubal Reversal

The highest tubal reversal pregnancy rates are seen among women who have reversal of tubal clips or tubal rings. For women in their twenties, the pregnancy rate was 87%. The pregnancy rate ranged from 83% to 73% for women in their thirties. Among women age 40 or older, the pregnancy rate was significantly lower (47%), reflecting the decline in natural fertility with age. These pregnancy rates among our tubal reversal patients are similar to the pregnancy rates for women who have never had a tubal ligation to begin with.