Small and reliable intervention
You’ve been together for years and plan to stay that way. You have children and the family is complete. What about contraception? Do you want to keep taking the pill as a woman or just use a condom? As a man you can also be sterilized. For many men a big step, but actually a small and reliable operation.
Male sterilization, also called a vasectomy, is a minor surgery in which both vas deferens are cut, shortened, and tied off. As a result, the sperm cells can no longer go out and the man becomes infertile.
tight underpants
The operation is usually performed on an outpatient basis under local anesthesia and takes no longer than half an hour. Then you can go home immediately. You should, however, take it easy in the following days, wear tight underpants and do not lift. It can get a bit sore and blue, but that will go away after a few days. Sterilization is final. A repair operation is possible, but very difficult and many men remain infertile afterwards.
What is changing?
After sterilization nothing really changes for a man. He can still get an erection and the orgasm remains the same. The only difference is that there are no more sperm cells in the semen.
If the operation is successful, there are no more sperm cells in the prostate fluid two to three months later. In those months, the man can still be fertile and must therefore use another form of contraception. After those few months, the hospital will examine the sperm to see if the sterilization was indeed successful.
Can the vas deferens grow back together?
Very occasionally the vas deferens grow back together in the years after sterilization. This is the case with about one or two in two hundred men. Yet sterilization is still a more reliable form of contraception than, for example, a coil, a condom or contraceptive pill.
