Vasectomies drop to Zero Percent in Karnataka, but Sterilisation Rates for Women Increase

By: WE Staff | Thursday, 11 August 2022

The family planning department of Karnataka is gathering information on males who are employed in various professions, vehicle drivers, and eligible couples in order to undertake orientation and awareness programmes outlining the benefits of having a no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV) procedure.

The procedure is starting in Kolar district, for which data collecting is virtually complete, according to Dr. Chandrika BR, deputy director of the family welfare department. They will expand the programme to additional districts based on the response.

She claimed that since the pandemic, surgical procedures are essentially nonexistent, which helps to explain the low rate of male sterilisation. Most hospitals at the taluk level were only accepting patients for emergency surgery. It also prevented men at the time from becoming more conscious of it.

In the National Family Health Survey-5, the number of males who had vasectomy procedures decreased from an already low 0.1 percent to 0%; conversely, figures for women showed an increase and stood at 57.4 percent in 2021. It's been really rare for me to see guys having surgery during my career. Less men undergo surgery because women are viewed as more inferior than men, according to Dr. Nivedita Jha, consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at Sparsh Hospital.

Despite the fact that the method for a guy is substantially simpler, any duty associated with contraception is believed to be a woman's obligation. For males, it still carries a stigma and is forbidden; they worry about becoming weak and losing their sexual function after surgery, which is utterly untrue, according to Jha.

When having their second child delivered by C-section, women frequently are not aware that they are being sterilised. According to Sayantani Chatterjee, a population specialist, it is a popular belief that males provide for the family's needs but women are still in charge of family planning. She stated that now days, rural women are more likely to use temporary contraceptives than metropolitan women.