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After only 43 vasectomies were reported in Mumbai in 2021-22, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has renewed attempts to encourage sterilisation in the community. It called upon men around March 27, 2022 to accompany their wives for routine antenatal screening and consider counselling sessions on the subject as efforts to intensify the awareness campaign.
Sterilization is a medical process of birth control that keeps a person from reproducing. The medical procedure conducted on men is called vasectomy while the surgery on women is called tubectomy. According to the BMC, sterilisation is among the better family planning options but is not the preferred option. BMC data shows that sterilisation is losing popularity in Mumbai. Over the last five years, the city witnessed a 44 percent decrease in contraception operations. The BMC health department said that as many as 914 males had the procedure in 2017-18. However, this decreased to 185 operations in 2018-19, then 116 operations in 2019-20, only 49 in 2020-21 and finally just 43 operations in 2021-22.
Meanwhile, in August last year, the Indian Express reported how more women than men underwent sterilization, even though tubectomy is more dangerous than vasectomy. The BMC sterilised 48,725 women in the three years before 2021 while only 350 males had vasectomy in the same period.
Data showed that 19,263 women were sterilized in 2018-19, followed by 17,659 women in 2019-20 and 11,803 women in 2020-21. Moreover, vasectomies only decreased during this time. The authorities blamed this trend on the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, activists accused the BMC’s family welfare department of growing complacent. Further, experts interviewed for the BMC Elections article said that the myths and misconceptions around the process is the main repellent. There are also religious and cultural reasons behind not following birth control procedures.
BMC Executive Health Officer Dr. Mangala Gomare said that people from low-income families believe vasectomy can harm health, masculinity, or reproductive capacities. In reality, the no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV) approach adopted by the BMC is a more advanced treatment that requires less bleeding and stitching. There is also the role of gender discrimination that pushed the societal idea that women, not men, should undergo such invasive processes.
To address this the BMC has launched multiple public awareness campaigns as possible and directed maternity and prenatal homes to dispel sterilisation myths and worries. The prenatal screening team can with consent record the husband’s responses and refer them to the appropriate team. There are also talks of starting counselling for men.
Regarding the bias for tubectomy, senior gynaecologist Dr Rajashree Katke said that women suffering from health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, heart problems, and other severe disorders should not take chances.
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