How vasectomy man, wife handled pregnancy shock

​​A couple in Kakamega county has said vasectomy is not a 100 per cent method of family planning after welcoming their fourth child, who wasn’t in the plan, despite Medgclay Salano undergoing the procedure.

Now a father of four, two boys and two girls, Salano says he is ready to raise the fourth child despite not planning for him.

Speaking to the Star at his home, he said after getting one boy and two girls, he felt like he was okay with the three and there was no need to add.

“You know with all the three kids, my wife underwent the Caesarean cut, and there has been that story that a woman can’t sustain the fourth process. So we agreed the three are enough,” he said.

He said after they had agreed on the three, he chose to participate in the family planning matters, not just subjecting his wife as it is perceived in African society.

In Africa, a male-dominated society, it is rare to find men who are willing participate in family planning.

Salano’s wife Beryl says men have left family planning issues to their spouses, which leaves them safe to sire kids in future either after divorce or loss of a child. Often, the women get the short end of the stick. 

"When people speak of family planning, it is the woman who is known for taking pills to control the birthrate in the family, and sometimes we undergo tubal ligation to stop having more children," she says.

After 12 years in marriage with three kids, Beryl says, they were okay and opted for the family planning method that does not involve pills, hence the husband opted for vasectomy.

NOT A WOMAN'S AFFAIR

Salano says a family is built by both men and women, and it’s unwise to make family planning a woman's affair.

“I had a long discussion with my wife for me to take this vasectomy as a measure for our family planning, even though she wasn’t that comfortable with it, thinking it was castration,” he said.

Salano says his wife feared it could  affect their sex life.

He said it took him time to convince her to allow him to undergo the process, but in the end, they agreed after consulting various medical experts.

Beryl says it was a long road to acceptance for her, but she believed in her man.

“My husband is a health practitioner who works with men,” she said. 

"He is part of a group that has been educating men on the need to go for vasectomy as a way of taking the pressure off their wives in terms of taking pills for birth control."

Vasectomy is intended as a permanent family planning method, with limited chances of reversal. It involves a medical procedure in which the tubes through which sperms flow- are disengaged to stop their movement.

PRECAUTIONS NECESSARY

Vihiga County Referral Hospital medical superintendent Vitalis Juma said the process is called a permanent family planning method on men's side.

"You know vasectomy involves the operation of cutting of those tubes of sperm cells, and they are always successful in the first process," Juma said.

"But when it comes back to reversing the process, there is no assurance it will go on successfully," he said.

Juma said once a man has undergone vasectomy, there is a certain duration during which they have to involve in sex with protective measures to ejaculate all the sperm cells out.

"In some situations, people undergo the process then abstain from sex for a period that won't work because those sperm cells are within the body. The best thing to do is to release them," he said.

Juma said after the process and a man is involved in sex without protective measures, the chances of that woman getting pregnant are still there 100 per cent if she is experiencing her periods.

The men who undergo the process as a way of family planning should advise their spouse to consider other family planning methods as the permanent one goes on, he said.

Juma raised the concerns after Salano, who underwent vasectomy in July 2022, impregnated his wife.

“I'm urging other men to go because it is safe,” he said.

“Indeed, the fear of becoming sexually dysfunctional is the reason most men keep off.”

PREGNANCY CHANCES

Vasectomy expert Dora Amakobe says it is possible for a woman to get pregnant even when her husband has undergone vasectomy.

“A part of the vas deferens tubes that carry sperms could have been severed or semen has lined up in the tube up to the urethra,” she said.

“If you engage in sex almost immediately after the procedure, there is a likelihood of causing a pregnancy. We advise our male clients to use precautions during the first 21 ejaculations after the vasectomy.”

Amakobe says semen analysis should be conducted after three months. Sometimes the severed tubes come back and reunite.

However, Salano said he observed the entire medic’s advice after the process to ensure it is successful but still made his wife pregnant.

“I was advised to use protective measures for the next three months after the process since there is always the possibility some semen could remain in the urethra that could lead to pregnancy,” Salano said.

He says after realising his wife had noticed some delays in periods, he treated it as a normal delay, but delaying for three months was abnormal.

“That long delay forced my wife to visit a clinic, where she was informed that she was pregnant. And we were told there could be possibilities,” Salano said.

Beryl says she was totally confused after she started feeling pregnant, with a series of queries in mind if the husband was still with the capacity to impregnate her after the vasectomy.

When she noticed those pregnancy symptoms, she wasn’t sure about that but that confirmation first from the medic left her with many queries that needed answers.

“When the doctor finally confirmed I was pregnant, I went into denial. I was worried about how the public would view me because I had delivered my third born last year and the baby is barely seven months old,” she said.

A woman getting pregnant months after her husband underwent vasectomy would have raised issues of infidelity on the part of the woman, but the trust between them protected her marriage.