Tubal Sterilization For Young Women With No Children
One of today’s patients at Chapel Hill Surgical Center was a woman in her thirties who recently become married and had a tubal ligation at age 24 years when she had no children. Her tubal ligation had been performed by a tubal coagulation procedure in which the fallopian tubes were burned at the junction of her uterus. The tubal lumen or opening within the uterine wall was scarred completely on both the right and left sides from the burning procedure. Therefore, the only way to perform a tubal reversal was through the technique of tubouterine implantation.
I mention this case because it was unnecessarily destructive, especially when performed for a young woman with no children. Many studies show that these are women who are most likely to change their minds later on and want to be able to have children. In this case, almost any other tubal ligation procedure would have been preferable. In my view, the best choice of a tubal ligation for a young woman with no children is the clip method (either Hulka clip or Filshie clip).
I have encountered other cases like this in the past. I wonder if the doctor who performed her tubal ligation considered the possibility that the patient might change her mind, and therefore it would be preferable to perform a tubal ligation better suited to reversing at a later time, should the need arise.
Comments Welcome
I am interested in what other people think about this.
See Tubal Ligation Ethics – Part 2. There are also more pages about the Ethics of Tubal Ligation on the A Personal Choice web site.
