When Vasectomies Are Not as Reliable as You Think
A husband who accused his wife of cheating when she became pregnant after his vasectomy got a big surprise when the baby turned out to be his.
Denise Culley, a U.K. mom of four, told the Daily Mail that she never cheated on her husband, Terry, especially since she hardly ever leaves their house because she’s so busy caring for their children. Doctors finally cleared up the confusion for the couple, who welcomed their fourth child, a baby girl, in April: They had sex too soon after the vasectomy operation, before the husband had fully healed, which allowed a pregnancy to happen.
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“That particular scenario constitutes the majority of vasectomy failures,” Joseph Alukal, MD, assistant professor of urology and obstetrics and gynecology and director of male reproductive health at NYU Langone Medical Center, tells Yahoo Parenting. “[Timing] makes a difference in terms of their chances of getting someone pregnant after the procedure.”
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During a vasectomy, which takes about 15 minutes, a tube called the vas deferens is cut and then tied off. These tied tubes, one for each testicle, act as a blockade between the testicles, which make sperm, and the prostate, which produces fluid that is one of the main components of sperm. “It’s like blowing up the bridge,” explains Alukal. “There are living sperm downstream of where that bridge out is. For some significant period of time after the procedure, you are still firing live rounds.”
After two weeks, patients are allowed to resume regular activities including exercise and sex, but with a caveat: They need to keep using contraception. To ensure there’s no more live sperm left, Alukal has his patients do a sperm count at a lab after they’ve had 25 ejaculations. “Otherwise, you will show a normal sperm count,” he says. “You still have sperm in your system if you haven’t had the ejaculations. You’re trying to empty out this portion of the system where the living sperm are.”
When the tests show zero sperm count, Alukal says then it’s OK to stop using contraception.
If patients follow a doctor’s instructions, pregnancy after the procedure is highly unlikely. “Vasectomies are as good as 99.96 percent,” says Alukal. “We do 500,000 vasectomies in the U.S. every year — that means it fails 4 out of every 10,000 times. The majority [of vasectomy failures] are guys who are two or three weeks out of the procedure and say, ‘I’ve got to be OK by now,’ and then get their wife or girlfriend pregnant. Or sometimes vasectomies can fail because the tube grew back together. That’s incredibly rare, and it takes years to happen.”
Adds Alukal: “There’s no other contraception that has this level of success and reliability.”
(Photo: Getty Images)
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