OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the relationship between the ideal number of children (INC) and post tubal ligation regret. METHODS: A nested case-control study was carried out with a total of 3878 women interviewed. Of these 1012 had been surgically sterilized at the time of the interview of the original study and as such comprise the sample of this study. These are constituted by women who stated that they would not undergo tubal ligation again and who regretted the procedure (103 - 10.8%) if they were to face the same circumstances. The Ideal Number of Children INC- was divided into two groups according to the relationship with the number of live births (LB): INC > LB and INC < LB. The proportion of women who regretted was calculated and the risk of regret estimated according to the relation INC/LB by means of Odds Ratios with the respective 95% confidence interval. Then the analysis was stratified according to control variables. Two multiple logistic regression models were developed in order to identify the independent risk factors associated with regret among women with INC>LB. RESULTS: The independent risk factors identified for post tubal ligation regret are INC > LB (OR=12.7), for performance of tubal ligation with the intention of just waiting some time before having more children (OR=8.0) and for having had more than two deliveries at the time of sterilization (OR=2.,4). CONCLUSION: Results suggest that a previous evaluation of the INC could help identify women with a higher risk for post ligation regret.
Ideal Number of Children; Surgical sterilization regret; Family planning
