Every year approximately 700,000 women opt to have tubal ligation or have their tubes tied to avoid pregnancy. While this is a highly successful avenue to prevent pregnancy, more than 14% of women later want the procedure reversed.
Life can have many twists and turns. You might once have made a pretty permanent decision that you now want to take back.
The good news is that tubal ligation reversal surgery is available with some high success rates. The key to success is selecting a tubal reversal surgeon with the proper knowledge, experience, and skills to reverse your procedure and get you to a healthy pregnancy.
Since this is a highly specialized surgery, you might wonder how to find the best tubal reversal surgeon. Read on for tips on selecting a surgeon for the most positive tubal reversal experience.
What Is Tubal Ligation Reversal Surgery?
Let’s start with understanding what happens during a tubal ligation reversal surgery.
First, when a woman has a tubal ligation, her fallopian tubes are cut or blocked. Tubal refers to the fallopian tubes in a woman’s body. Each month, the egg travels from the ovary through the fallopian tube to the uterus.
The term ligation means to tie off…or tie closed. So, the tubes are cut or blocked during a tubal ligation. This prevents the egg from traveling to the uterus for fertilization and pregnancy.
Women opt for tubal ligation because it’s highly effective in preventing pregnancy.
In a tubal ligation reversal, the surgeon reconnects the fallopian tubes, so the eggs have a route to travel from the ovary to the uterus again and the sperm have a route to find the egg.
Choosing a Tubal Ligation Reversal Surgeon
As you consider options for surgeons to do this procedure, you might first talk with your gynecologist. Yet, you want to take the time to select a tubal ligation reversal surgeon who does this procedure regularly.
Since success in this procedure can mean the eventual pregnancy you now desire, choosing the best surgeon is paramount.
Let’s take a closer look at what you should consider when selecting your surgeon.
Do Your Research
Once you decide that your tubal ligation was a mistake, you might be anxious and in a hurry to reverse it.
If you now know you want a pregnancy, you might feel the urgency to make it happen.
Yet, not all surgeons have the same experience and success rates. Not all tubal reversal clinics are created equal.
It’s important to take your time and research your options. That might mean you need to travel to get to the very best option for your surgery.
Some clinics and doctors might make all kinds of promises.
This is an emotional decision, and you want to choose your surgeon based on well-researched information and facts about that surgeon.
Read Reviews
No matter the type of professional you’re hiring, reading online reviews is always a good place to start. Reading about others’ experiences can give you insight into the surgeon.
Reading the reviews can help give insight into the experience of working with a particular surgeon.
Don’t be afraid to ask your surgeon for references. They should be able to provide you with patient pregnancy testimonials from other patients. It might be a red flag if the surgeon is unwilling to provide those to you.
Experience
Here’s what you don’t want: a surgeon performing this surgery who doesn’t perform it as their focus.
Maybe your gynecologist may know the procedure and what needs to happen. Yet, if they don’t practice it consistently, they don’t have the same level of experience.
This is a specialized procedure where choosing a surgeon with years of experience matters. The benefits of experience are that a surgeon will know how to handle situations and scenarios that may arise.
If your case is complicated, they’ve seen it before. They also have the experience toolkit to manage any number of scenarios.
It can be tricky to decide how much experience is enough. Ask your surgeon how many of these procedures they have done and how often they perform them.
Consider Success Rate
Not every single procedure will be successful. Every patient comes in with different circumstances in their health. Often that’s related to the health of the patient when they arrive.
You do want to discuss success rates with your surgeon. While all patients come in with different situations, the tubal ligation reversal surgeon should be able and willing to provide statistical data and outcomes for their work.
Once the surgeon evaluates your case individually, they should also be able to have some projections about possible success. Of course, they can’t make guarantees, but with experience, they should anticipate possible success.
Identifying a Good Clinic from a Bad One
Identifying whether a clinic is a good one can be tricky. There are many clinics out there that will make you promises. They will play on your emotional desire to have a baby. They will offer you the cheapest rate or make promises they can’t always keep.
So, how can you decipher a good clinic from a less than good one? Good surgeons have relationships with their patients and stay connected to them to follow up with outcomes.
Patients who feel good about their experiences using a particular surgeon are willing to share those experiences and will give you insight into a clinic and what it’s like being a patient there.
Level of Specialty in the Surgeon
As previously mentioned, it’s not uncommon to find a doctor who has some knowledge about this type of procedure.
However, this particular surgery requires a high level of specialty to achieve the best success rate.
You should look for a surgeon who focuses on just this type of surgery. If tubal ligation reversals are their area of specialty, you know you’re getting a surgeon who’s bringing a high level of experience and practice to your procedure.
Communication Skills
Ultimately, you know you know you know longer want your tubal ligation in place, and it’s your goal to become pregnant again.
But you should expect a doctor and a clinic that will carefully communicate with you about what to expect before, during, and after your procedure.
You should understand exactly what to expect your doctor will be doing with your body. The surgeon should be willing to discuss risk factors with you.
The surgeon should be willing to spend time with you to walk you through the steps of your particular case.
Surgery Cost
Of course, cost is always a factor for most people. Comparing surgery costs is a necessary evil.
Most insurance companies consider a tubal ligation reversal an elective surgery and will not elect to cover the cost. However, every insurance is different and what brings you to this procedure is different for every patient.
You should talk to your insurance company to see if they will cover any part of the procedure.
You also want a surgeon who spells out the costs connected to tubal ligation reversal so there are no surprises and you can plan for the expected cost.
If a surgeon is unwilling to be upfront and black and white about the expected cost of this procedure, you should likely be wary of the clinic and surgeon.
Discussion About Risk
Every patient is different, and every medical procedure comes with inherent risks.
Generally speaking, tubal ligation reversal surgery is a low-risk surgery. The risks you might face involve scar tissue that might prevent a safe pregnancy in the future. This is something you want to discuss with your surgeon after they consider your unique case.
Success Rate Factors for Pregnancy
Statistically, 50% to 80% of women who have tubal ligation reversal surgery go on to have successful pregnancies. Some surgeons may have higher success rates depending on their practice and the number of procedures they perform.
There are a number of other factors that might play into whether you will eventually garner a successful pregnancy following the procedure. Some of these factors include:
- Both the quality and quantity of sperm produced by your partner can impact chances of pregnancy
- Conditions of your fallopian tubes and how much tube there is to work with while in surgery
- Scar tissue in the pelvic region can impact future pregnancies
- Age can always impact the likelihood of pregnancy
The type of tubal ligation you had originally can also impact the success of pregnancy after the reversal. Your tubal ligation can impact the health of your fallopian tubes, which impacts pregnancy success.
Choose the Very Best Tubal Reversal Surgeon for Your Procedure
Because this procedure is so important to you, you want to find the best tubal reversal surgeon to perform it for you. Use these tips to help you find a surgeon who can meet your needs.
Visit our patient portal, where you can scan your medical records for evaluation and connect with our clinic staff, who can answer all your questions.
