Over 35 and Want to Have a Baby? Try These Three Fertility-Boosting Tips
If you’re over 35 and want to become pregnant, there are obstacles, but it’s not impossible. We have three fertility-boosting tips for you for a happy, healthy pregnancy.
Your Guide to Tubal Reversal
If you’re looking for contraception options, tubal ligation, where your fallopian tubes are blocked so sperm can’t reach the egg, is about 99% effective at preventing pregnancy.
Colloquially known as “having your tubes tied,” it’s generally recommended only if the woman is sure she doesn’t want more children since it’s pretty much permanent.
Board-certified OB/GYN Dr. Hany H Ahmed offers many forms of contraception, including tubal ligation, to his patients in Houston, Texas.
He understands, though, that some women change their minds about getting pregnant again; for them, he offers a tubal reversal procedure, although it has limitations.
What’s tubal reversal?
If you’ve undergone a tubal ligation procedure but decide you want to restore your fertility, tubal reversal is how your doctor reconnects your fallopian tubes.
However, the success of this procedure depends on several factors, including your age, the type of tubal ligation you had, and other factors, such as fibroids or endometriosis, that can affect your fertility.
If you’re not a good candidate for tubal reversal, you can still become pregnant through in vitro fertilization. With IVF, the doctor implants an embryo in your uterus, bypassing the fallopian tubes completely.
The likelihood of success with tubal reversal depends on many factors, including:
Your age
Your chance of becoming pregnant naturally decreases as you age, eventually stopping when you reach menopause. Younger women have higher pregnancy rates and lower risks of having a miscarriage or a child with a congenital disorder.
Other infertility causes
Having irregular periods, uterine fibroids, scarring in your pelvis, or endometriosis (where the tissue lining your uterus grows outside the organ) may reduce your chances of becoming pregnant after a tubal ligation reversal.
Your partner’s sexual health
The health of your partner’s sperm has a direct bearing on whether you’re a good candidate for surgery. If the sperm aren’t healthy, you won’t get pregnant.
Your tubal ligation procedure
The type of tubal ligation you had may determine the success of the reversal. If your doctor used clips or rings to tie the tubes, they’re easier to reverse than if they burned the ends of the tubes (electrocautery).
Your fallopian tube length
Your doctor needs enough healthy fallopian tube segments to work with to reconnect your tubes. If you don’t have enough, he can’t proceed with the surgery.
Tubal reversal surgery
Tubal reversal surgery lasts about 2-3 hours and takes place in a hospital, though you can go home the same day.
The technique Dr. Ahmed uses dictates what happens during surgery. With mini-laparotomy, for example, he makes a single 2-inch side-to-side incision just below your bikini line, performing all the steps through that incision using an operating microscope to view the area.
During surgery, Dr. Ahmed:
- Administers general anesthesia so you’re asleep throughout the procedure
- Insert a catheter into your bladder to collect your pee during surgery
- Makes a single incision or several smaller incisions to access the fallopian tubes
- Assesses whether your tubes can be reconstructed
- If reversal is possible, open the blocked ends of the tubes and reconnect them
- Injects dye through your uterus to ensure the fallopian tubes are open
- Closes your incisions with dissolvable sutures and places a bandage over the site
Dr. Ahmed has a 98% success rate in performing tubal reversals.
If you’ve had a tubal ligation but now have a change of heart about wanting to get pregnant, talk with Dr. Ahmed to see if tubal reversal is right for you. Call us to schedule an appointment, or book online with us today.
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