If you have been thinking about reversing your tubal ligation then you have probably spent a lot of time researching your options.
No doubt you have noticed a lot of women talking about ectopic pregnancy and the chances of having a pregnancy miscarriage.
If you have already had tubal reversal surgery and have been spending time on social media then it probably seems like EVERYONE is saying they have had at least one pregnancy miscarriage.
Most women will ask themselves at least one time…does tubal reversal cause miscarriage…or at least does tubal reversal increase the risk of miscarriage?
Does Tubal Reversal Increase The Risk Of Miscarriage?
This question is usually asked when you experience your first miscarriage after tubal reversal surgery. After you have spent a considerable amount to time, effort, finances, and emotion into having a tubal reversal you can easily understand why patients would be upset about a miscarriage.
Here is how the pregnancy miscarriage story often plays out and why some women will ask… at some point in their journey…does tubal reversal increase the risk of miscarriage.
You have spent years researching tubal reversal surgery. You have looked at many doctors, read many websites, and poured through a countless number of patient reviews. You ultimately make your decision to have reversal, pick a doctor, complete your paperwork and pay for reversal surgery. You get time off of work, travel to have your surgery, and arrange childcare while you are having surgery and recovering.
Your surgery is a success! Your tubes are healthy! You return home and starting trying to conceive. Finally you get your positive pregnancy test!
With tears in your eyes you tell your partner and you gradually begin to have all the typical symptoms of early pregnancy. You share the news with your family and friends. You make an appointment to see your doctor.
Your joy begins to crumble when you have that first ultrasound. Sometimes nothing can be seen on the ultrasound. Sometimes there is no heart beat and the doctor tells you the pregnancy will miscarry. After the words ‘miscarriage’ are uttered everything else becomes a blur and the numb feeling of despair overtakes you.
Unfortunately, many women will go through a pregnancy miscarriage at some point in their lives.
If you have had a tubal ligation reversal and then a pregnancy miscarriage then it is natural to ask does tubal reversal increase the risk of pregnancy miscarriage…or, at least, is there some relation.
Let’s understand some facts about miscarriage.
Is Pregnancy Miscarriage More Common After Tubal Reversal?
Before we can answer if pregnancy miscarriage is more common after tubal reversal surgery, then we really need to understand what a miscarriage is.
What is a miscarriage? The medical answer is the loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks gestation (5 months of pregnancy).
The more simplified answer is a pregnancy miscarriage is the loss of any pregnancy you really wanted.
No matter what the answer the feelings of loss and despair can be profound for many women and couples.
How Common Is Miscarriage?
Pregnancy miscarriage is very common and is estimated to occur in 15-20% of all pregnancies. This means about 1 out of 5 pregnancies will end in miscarriage.
The risk of miscarriage does increase with the age of the mother and the causes of miscarriage can be grouped into three major categories:
- Maternal health
- Genetic
- Lifestyle
More information: What is miscarriage (early pregnancy loss)?
Causes Of Pregnancy Miscarriage
Severe chronic medical illness will increase the chance of miscarriage. A chronic illnesses is any medical illness which lasts for more than three months and requires continual supervision and treatment by a physician.
Common chronic illnesses that can increase the chance of miscarriage are diabetes, thyroid disease, and lupus arthritis. Some patients may have underlying blood abnormalities which can cause recurrent miscarriage. Most miscarriages are not caused by medical illnesses.
Causes Of Pregnancy Miscarriage: Lifestyle
There are several lifestyle factors that can cause pregnancy miscarriage. The most common are cigarette smoking, heavy alcohol abuse, and use of recreational drugs. Typically women have to be heavy abusers of these substances to increase the risk of miscarriage.
Causes Of Pregnancy Miscarriage: Genetic
The most common reason for miscarriage are genetic abnormalities which occur in the pregnancy during or after conception.
When a sperm finds an egg it contributes genetic instructions from the father. This information is combined with the genetic instructions of the mother. Once this occurs the egg will then begin to grow and divide.
This information will be copied over and over again and each cell will have a complete set of instructions. This is an amazingly complicated process and if there are any errors then the pregnancy will stop growing and miscarry.
Genetic miscarriages can happen to any women. The chance of genetic miscarriage does increase with the age of the mother. It is important to note that the age of the father does not have any influence on the risk of pregnancy miscarriage.
It is amazing miscarriages do not happen in more than 20% of pregnancies. To grasp how amazing it is that genetic accidents and miscarriage don’t happen more often you need to conceptualize what happens after fertilization.
Genetic Causes Of Miscarriage? Using the Bible For An Easy Explanation
To understand how easy it is for genetic errors to happen it is helpful to understand this explanation for how easy it is for genetic accidents to happen.
Imagine you are given a job. Your job is to sit in a room with a copy of the New Testament of the Bible. Someone brings you a copy of the Old Testament of the Bible. The New Testament (the mother) and the Old Testament (the father) are in perfect condition. Your job is to hand copy each version into a complete Bible.
Once you are done making a copy then the previous copy will be taken away from you.
You then have to use your new handwritten copy to make another handwritten copy. Every time you make a copy the previous ones will be taken away and you have 9 months to do this several billion times!
If there are any major mistakes in any of your copies then you will lose your job (the pregnancy will miscarry).
This is what happens when cells grow and divide and this is why it is amazing pregnancy miscarriages do not happen more often.
Now many people will read the above explanation and not understand it. They will just see Bible…and say “God is punishing me for my sins!” No.
A Bible is just a great analogy for discussing DNA and copying of DNA that has to occur each time a cell splits into two.
The reason we use the Bible explanation is because it is large historical document that contains a lot of information…just like our DNA. Any small errors in copying this information will result in something that is unreadable…when you have to copy it over and over again…after about a billion times…the small errors can become much larger errors….and the final 1 billionth document may be unreadable. This is exactly the same reason why we have genetic miscarriages.
So don’t take it personally!
It is actually amazing that humans exists at all….genetic copying is an amazingly complicated process. It is actually amazing that we dont have MORE miscarriage or birth defects than we currently do!
IVF (Invitro) And Miscarriage
Don’t think because you have IVF that you will avoid the risk of miscarriage because miscarriage can also occur after in vitro treatments.
In our next article, Is Miscarriage Higher After Tubal Reversal?, we will discuss the possible relationship between tubal ligation reversal and pregnancy miscarriage.
More Information About Miscarriage
Dr. Monteith specializes in tubal reversal surgery. He maintains extensive information about the success of his tubal reversal surgeries.
For more information about the chance of miscarriage after tubal reversal with Dr Monteith visit: Chances of pregnancy miscarriage after tubal reversal with A Personal Choice
If you are interested in learning more about tubal reversal and the chance of pregnancy then visit his comprehensive website dedicated to tubal reversal surgery: A Personal Choice Tubal Reversal Center.
