Oh asicsgirl pullleeeeeessse!!!!! He's worried about the "small number of men who have unexplained chronic pain after the op" and so are you!! Do me a favour
There are risks with female sterilisation too you know.
It is a procedure which is most usually performed under general anesthetic (unless done as part of an elective c-section, which incidentally a lot of obstetric practitioners are not happy to do because many believe that for a number of reasons, wherever possible, sterilisation should be performed after an appropriate interval following pregnancy). Having a GA carries risks by itself.
Female sterilisation is a far more complicated and invasive procedure than vasectomy which is performed under local anesthetic and often does not even require admission to hospital and can be carried out in the treatment room at a GP practice. Sterilisation is usually done using the key hole laparoscopic method. This carries the risk of damage to other organs within the abdomen such as bowel and bladder which may necessitate opening up the abdomen to put right at the time.
Some surgeons use clips and rings to block the tubes (as opposed to severing them or burning them to seal them closed) and some women suffer complications with post operative pain due to the these clips and rings which can last for months. If the pain does not resolve it can necessitate a further operation to remove the tubes altogether.
There is a risk that if the sterilisation is not successful and the tubes rejoin, there is a far higher risks that any subsequent and resulting pregnancies would be ectopic. Ectopic pregnancies can be life threatening for women.
Failure rates for female sterilisation are around 1 in 200 (and slightly higher if the procedure is performed at the same time a C-section is done) as opposed to 1 in 2000 for vasectomy.
A vasectomy is much easier to reverse than a sterilisation. The reversal of a sterilisation would be a major operation as it would require access to the abdomen. It carries a success rate of around 1 in 10. Rates of success for reversal of sterilisations are also lower if the sterilisation was originally performed at the same time as a C-section.
Periods can also be heavier following sterilisation too.
The incidence of post-vasectomy pain is relatively rare and often spontaneously resolves after a few months. It has also been argued by some urologists that a lot of this pain is psychological.
What about women? How long does it take for a woman to feel entirely back to normal and free of all traces of discomfort after giving birth? Weeks, months or maybe even never after some extremely traumatic and complicated births.
Bearing in mind all these factors, most practitioners encourage couples who are considering a permanent method of birth control to consider vasectomy before female sterilisation.
I tend to agree.
If I were you asicsgirl, I'd tell your DP not to be such a bloody wuss and get himself along there. He needs a kick up the arse, not you humouring and encouraging him to let you take all the strain.
He sounds like he's only thinkig of himself to me and you're being far too accommodating!!