A profile of 125 women requesting reversal of sterilization.

A series of 125 consecutive requests from patients in a private practice for sterilization reversal has been analyzed. Most of the women (65.6%) had changed their marital status since the sterilization. 93.9% had been divorced and subsequently remarried with 73.1% with younger husbands and 89.6% marrying for the 1st time; 6.1% had been widowed. In the 34.4% of the group who had no change in marital status a reappraisal and the wish to have another baby sometimes following the death of a child (16.3%) or an improvement in health (7.0%) led to the request for sterilization reversal. At the time of sterilization 64.8% of the women were under age 30 and 82 (65.6%) had not had a stable marriage. This indicates that very careful counseling should be carried out before sterilizing patients and also before considering sterilization reversal. (authors)