Good question. The terms tubal ligation, tubes tied, tubal sterilization, and female sterilization can all be used interchangeably to describe the same process. In the U.S., up to one third of women use sterilization as their method of birth control. This is a highly effective method, but like all methods of pregnancy prevention, it is not 100 percent effective. The largest analysis of failure rates associated with tubal ligation found that over a period of 10 years, the failure rate was 1.85 percent. Approximately one third of pregnancies that happened following tubal sterilization are ectopic, located in the tubes instead of the uterus.

In the last decade, a new sterilization procedure called Essure has been introduced which involves placing small inserts in the fallopian tubes. Scar tissue then forms around the tubes, resulting in tubal occlusion (blockage). Recent studies have shown very high success rates from this procedure, greater than 99 percent at five years.