Early and medium-term morbidity of minilaparatomy female sterilisation in Kenya

A total of 1,521 clients undergoing voluntary surgical contraception via Minilaparatomy under local anaesthesia (L.A. Minilap) were prospectively followed up for early and medium-term morbidity. The commonest complaint was some degree of abdominal pain at 24.2%. Eight percent of these [corrected] reported that the operative pain was severe, but 92.0% reported minimal or moderate pain. The overall complication at 6 weeks was 4.1%, 17.5% of these were major and 82.5% minor, i.e. the rate for major complications was 0.7% and 3.4% for minor complications. There were no deaths. Female VSC via Minilaparatomy under L.A. is a relatively comfortable and easy procedure in well selected and counselled clients and carries minimal, usually non-recurrent morbidity.