The safety of combined abortion-sterilization procedure

Abstract

To determine the safety of tubal sterilization performed at the time of induced abortion, we compared data on 616 women who underwent induced abortion and concurrent tubal ligation (Group 1) with 1,805 women who had induced abortion only (Group 2). These two groups of women were healthy, seven to 12 weeks pregnant, and between the ages of 16 and 44 years. The partly-standardized morbidity rates for Group 1 and Group 2 were 5.4 and 3.6%, respectively. Thus, the sterilization procedure added 1.8% to the complication rate of induced abortion only. The complication rate for women who had interval culdoscopic ligation under the same conditions in the same department was 2.4%. This is not significantly different from the complication rate of 1.8% attributable to sterilization procedures in women who had abortion and concurrent ligation. We conclude that these data support our present practice of performing tubal ligation at the time of induced abortion, rather than changing to the practice of abortion followed by interval sterilization six weeks later, with its many disadvantages to the patient as well as to those providing family-planning services.