Sterilization Doesn’t Always Prevent Pregnancy, Study Finds
From Times staff and wire reports
Female sterilization is a highly effective method of contraception, but it is not quite as foolproof as once thought, says a study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study found that one in 50 sterilized women became pregnant within 10 years. “That’s higher than we would have guessed,” said Dr. Bert Peterson of the CDC.
Doctors had previously estimated that one in 250 women would get pregnant within a year of sterilization. CDC studied 10,685 women for 10 years and found 143 pregnancies. One-third were ectopic pregnancies, in which the fetus grows outside of the uterus and are life-threatening unless discovered quickly.
