Few of the women who undergo tubal sterilization or whose husbands undergo
vasectomy later go on to regret either procedure, according to a study
funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
(NICHD) and conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC). The study appears in the June issue of "Obstetrics & Gynecology".

The study found the proportion of women who experience regret was
essentially the same -- about 6 to 7 percent -- five years after their
husbands' vasectomy or their own tubal sterilization. The study also found
that substantial conflict between a woman and her husband increases the risk
of regret after either vasectomy or tubal sterilization.

"This study is reassuring in that a comparatively small number of the women
in the study experienced regret after either they or their husbands
underwent a voluntary sterilization procedure," said Duane Alexander, M.D.,
Director of the NICHD. "However, the finding also underscores the
importance of the health care professional in providing thorough counseling
for those considering sterilization as a means of family planning."

The researchers, Denise J. Jamieson, M.D. and her colleagues, analyzed data
from The U.S. Collaborative Review of Sterilization (CREST), which enrolled
women ages 18 to 44 who underwent tubal sterilization at medical centers in
six cities around the country between 1985 and 1987. This analysis included
data collected from 3,672 sterilized women and 525 other women whose
husbands underwent vasectomy, all of whom were asked about regret at follow
up visits throughout the course of the study.

Although earlier CREST papers addressed the probability of regret among a
larger group of sterilized women, the current report is the first to
evaluate regret among women whose husbands underwent vasectomy and to make
comparisons to women undergoing tubal sterilization.

The researchers found that the chance of a woman experiencing regret within
5 years after her husband's vasectomy was only 6.1 percent, a figure which
did not differ significantly from the 7.0 percent of women who, 5 years
later, regretted tubal sterilization.

"It's reassuring that such large percentages of those who chose either
vasectomy or tubal sterilization were satisfied with their decisions," said
one of the paper's authors, Steven Kaufman, M.D., of NICHD's Contraception
and Reproductive Health Branch.

Similarly, the researchers found that the overall cumulative probability of
the woman requesting that the vasectomy be reversed was low -- 2.0 percent