Some women get pregnant even after having their tubes tied, study finds

Is tubal sterilisation an effective birth-control method? A study may prove otherwise. More than 5% of women who get their tubes tied later become pregnant, a new analysis suggests. And researchers say the failure of tubal sterilisation procedures, which are widely considered permanent, “may be considerably more common than many expect”.

The study, published in NEJM Evidence , used data from the National Survey of Family Growth, which looks at contraception use, pregnancy, and birth outcomes among a representative sample of United States women aged 15 to 44. The data was assembled during four waves of data collection from about 4000 women who had tubal ligations between 2002 and 2015..