What Factors Affect Tubal Reversal Success
Knowing about tubal reversal success is probably a key piece of information you are wanting to know. That is, if you have decided you want another child and to get your tubes untied. If you are wanting to do it for relief of post tubal ligation syndrome problems, then maybe the tubal reversal pregnancy success rates aren’t quite as important.
So if you are one of those wanting to know about tubal reversal success, you will probably want to also know what success depends upon. A successful outcome depends upon three basic things. These are the method of tubal ligation, your age and the length of the fallopian tubes left after the surgery which, of course, depends upon what happened in your tubal ligation in the first place.
For the remainder of this article, and to discuss those three areas and how they affect tubal reversal success, we will use the published statistics from the Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center website. Now those statistics mostly apply just to Dr. Berger’s patients as he has done more than 7000 reversals. You should understand that these may not readily apply to whoever you go to locally that says they will do the reversal, simply because they do not have the experience of Dr. Berger and are not under his tutelage. But these statistics are all we have to work with.
Starting with the ligation method, you will see you have higher success rate if your tubes were tied using rings or clips. The next best method, in regards to a better pregnancy rate, is ligation/resection which is where part of the tube is removed. Coagulation, or burning of the tubes, brings a 56% pregnancy rate after tubal reversal leaving fimbriectomy or unknown surgeries as the last or least successful reversal method. Even at that, it is better than 50% which is better than you get at any shot of IVF.
With age, you should see that the older you are, the less your chances of successfully getting pregnant. The statistics from the website bear this out. Patients under 30 when they had their tubal reversal have shown an 82% pregnancy rate while women over 40 have only a 41% chance. Bear in mind, however, that the over 40 statistic contains at least two women who were in their 50s when they had a tubal reversal done.
When viewing the length of your fallopian tubes, it comes down to the longer the better. If your tubes are at least 7 and 1/2 cm long after reversal surgery, then your chances of pregnancy are 80%. However, a woman that only has 2 and 1/2 cm or less to work with only has a 38% shot at success.
However, you should realize that becoming pregnant and staying that way are two different things. Also of note is that you have a 10% greater chance of having an ectopic pregnancy after having a tubal reversal. If you check out the statistics on this page, http://news.tubal-reversal.net/pregnancy-study-2007-pregnancy_outcomes.htm, you will be able to see how getting pregnant translated to actually having a child.
These statistics should give you some good information about tubal reversal success to base any decisions you need to make on. Using the following resources will indubitably answer the rest of your questions and allow you to dig further into the statistics.
