Can female sterilization be reversed?

Female sterilization is also a common method of contraception. For women who no longer want to have children, they can undergo surgery to avoid pregnancy again. However, after sterilization, if they want to get pregnant again, they need to undergo surgery to reverse the sterilization. Surgical recanalization can be said to have become a social problem, because not every surgical recanalization can achieve very good results.

Can female sterilization be reversed?

Female sterilization is a relatively effective contraceptive method with an efficiency of nearly 100%. However, some women hope to become pregnant again after having their tubal sterilization for various reasons (such as accidental death of a child or remarriage, etc.). So, can women recover after having their tubal sterilization?

If a woman who has undergone a sterilization procedure wishes to have a child again, she can undergo a tubal recanalization surgery to reconnect the fallopian tubes and restore her fertility.

However, the probability of getting pregnant again after surgery is related to many factors, such as the couple's age, physical condition, and the surgical method used during ligation.

Theoretically, under microsurgical operation, the recanalization rate can reach more than 90%, and the intrauterine pregnancy rate after recanalization can reach 80%.

Ligation and recanalization conditions

Because female infertility is mainly caused by ovarian ovulation disorder, followed by fallopian tube dysfunction. Older women who have undergone tubal ligation and are remarried have no choice but to seek help from obstetricians and gynecologists to "restart their lives." Therefore, the problem of tubal recanalization after tubal ligation has gradually become a social problem. There are currently two main methods of tubal ligation. One is to "seek a way out", which means undergoing microsurgical reconnection of the fallopian tubes. Due to tubal ligation, many people mistakenly believe that they can restore the ability to conceive naturally by simply "loosening" the fallopian tubes. This is a wrong perception. A normal fallopian tube is about 8 to 10 centimeters long from the uterine end to the fimbria, and the diameter ranges from the thinnest 0.1 centimeters to 1.0 centimeters. Because the ligation surgery will first tie the fallopian tube with silk thread, cut it and use electric cautery to destroy the inner diameter and stop bleeding, or even remove the entire fallopian tube. Therefore, whether the fallopian tubes can be restored after ligation depends on the extent of the operation.

If it is a small-scale tubal ligation surgery, laparoscopy can be performed to assess the feasibility of surgery before the recanalization surgery. If the fallopian tube is severely edematous and deformed and is less than 4 cm long or the fimbria has been removed, microscopic reconnection of the fallopian tube must be abandoned. When the doctor performs tubal ligation recanalization surgery, he first removes the two ends of the fallopian tube at the ligation site, then aligns the inner tubes on both sides, and then sews them together with 4 to 8 very fine sutures. In addition, the location of tubal ligation, the degree of edema and damage, the diameter of the fallopian tubes at both ends, the remaining length of the fallopian tube, and the surgeon's ability to perform microsurgery are the key factors that affect the success of the operation. Patients should undergo regular tubal examinations after tubal ligation reversal surgery. If the examination still shows tubal edema or blockage, they should seek in vitro fertilization to try to get pregnant.