Men Who Have Gotten Vasectomies Are Sharing Their Stories And Some Of Them May Surprise You
When it comes to planning a medical procedure involving a sensitive area of the body, it’s not hard to find reasons to postpone. There is the need to take time off from work, discomfort and recovery time. In the case of vasectomy, the person (or couple) must also accept the decision not to have children in the future.
The stereotypical patient is a middle-aged father who does not want to have any more children and whose wife perhaps welcomes this opportunity to finally take on the burden of her family’s reproductive planning.
Many vasectomy patients still fit this profile, but doctors are seeing increased interest in the procedure from younger and childless people. (Vasectomies are usually recycledHowever, a successful pregnancy following reversal depends on a number of factors.)
Motivations for vasectomy vary and are currently changing.
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For some patients, the decision is made with a sense of urgency. “My wife had three C-sections in three years and three months, two of which were due to failed birth control. It had to be done,” Robert*, now in his 70s, told HuffPost.
Others feel less rushed and may postpone for proper timing. Matthew* told HuffPost that he chose to have the procedure done on the Wednesday before the opening weekend of March Madness, “because I knew I had to lie down all weekend. It would be nice to have something to watch.”
David (who asked to be identified only by his first name, as did the men quoted throughout the rest of this article) had the surgery shortly after his wife had twins, bringing the total number of children to five. “It was good timing that the twins didn’t require that much work because it was before they could even crawl and the other three kids were with the grandparents for a few weeks so I could rest and recover properly without putting too much strain on my wife,” he told HuffPost.
Many men talked about feeling ready once their families were complete. As Tom tells it, “I scheduled the vasectomy appointment when my third child was close to 1 year old and healthy.”
Age can be a challenging factor, as it was for Eric, who told HuffPost: “I wanted more kids because I only had one, but the idea of raising kids until I was in my 60s didn’t seem like a good time. I’m 43 now, so I decided to go for it.”
Financial responsibility for a child was also a top concern for the men who spoke to HuffPost. “The last of my three children was born when I was 39,” a man named Elton told HuffPost. “It seemed irresponsible to plan to have more children when, mathematically, it would synchronize my time to ‘help them through college and begin independence’ with my time to ‘get my affairs in order for a reasonably independent retirement’.”
Anthony revealed that he was planning a vasectomy in 2020, but as an elective procedure, it was postponed due to COVID-19. She “didn’t want any more children” and was concerned about having the resources to support another child. “The financial and emotional demands to provide a decent life for a child are becoming overwhelming,” Anthony told HuffPost.
There’s also the ease of the procedure compared to having someone with female anatomy have their tubes tied, and the feeling that here is finally an opportunity for the man to “do his part” when it comes to family planning.
Chris, who decided with his wife to have two children in their family, said, “Vasectomy is a much faster and less effective operation than the operations my wife could do for the same effect.” “My cut was much less invasive and had a much shorter recovery time than having her tubes tied or anything else. It made sense to us.”
David felt similarly: “Vasectomies are non-invasive and painless, so it was a no-brainer for me.”
Not all men seeking vasectomies are fathers, and many are now younger than you might expect.
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The cultural impetus for this change was the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Dobbs v. Wade in June 2022, which overturned the Wade case and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in the United States. It appears to be the Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. Since the decision, a rise Change in the number of people planning a vasectomy and their reasons for doing so.
Dr. Kathleen HwangAs a urologist at Penn Medicine, he has experienced increased interest in vasectomy in his practice. Around the fall of 2022, “the number of consultation requests increased exponentially and I had to adjust my clinical practice to accommodate the increase in volume.”
Hwang was involved in something research study About the reasons men want a vasectomy. He and his colleagues surveyed more than 300 men who wanted to have vasectomies after June 2022, when Dobbs’ decision was made.
30 percent of survey respondents identified “socio-political issues,” including the Dobbs decision, as an “important” or even “most important” factor in their decision.
Hwang explained that patients who feel this way are often younger and single. They were also more likely to be childless. Childless patients were five times more likely to say sociopolitical issues influenced their decisions, Hwang said.
“The fastest growing population of men interested in this method of birth control are childless and young men (under 30),” Hwang told HuffPost.
“The majority of patients gave feedback that their decision to pursue a vasectomy was largely to reduce the burden on their female partners of using an existing method of contraception or to protect them from having to consider abortion,” the survey said.
Interestingly, the survey found that men who considered sociopolitical reasons for having a vasectomy spent a significant amount of time thinking about their decision—an average of four years, nearly twice as long as those who did not report sociopolitical influence.
“In the past, it was thought that young men or childless men made more hasty decisions and would regret sterilization, but our data shows that they spend a significant amount of time considering vasectomy and are less likely to regret it,” Hwang said.
Thomas, a 27-year-old who recently had a vasectomy, exemplifies this cultural shift in motivations.
“Personally, I have never wanted to have children in my life and have wanted to have a vasectomy since I was at least 22,” she told HuffPost. He delayed due to not having health insurance and also because he thought providers would question his decision.
“Since I don’t have children and I’m quite young, I wasn’t sure any doctor would willingly perform this procedure on me,” he said.
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“I’ve been under more and more pressure to get one lately due to the change in management. If access to prenatal healthcare is becoming increasingly difficult, someone who doesn’t want children is naturally concerned that they will be forced to have one. It’s for my own protection, but it’s also in the interest of protecting women and people with uteruses, because pregnancy is a two-way street,” she said.
When it comes to women’s feelings about men who have had a vasectomy, it seems that at least some of them may be relieved to find a partner who has had a vasectomy. A man named Jon told HuffPost that he had the surgery while he was married, shortly after the birth of his third child. She said she divorced a few years later and “That apparently became a ‘plus point’ for me when I started dating again.”
*Not real nameThis article was first published on: HuffPost.
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