Minilaparotomy female sterilisation in a rural setup: a comparison of two antibiotic regimens

Female sterilisation is the world's most popular contraceptive method. With present advances in contraceptive technology, surgical contraception seems to be the most popular and safest method of fertility control all over the world. The advent of laparoscopy has made the procedure easier in developed countries but not so widely in a developing country like India. Current study was carried out to compare two antibiotic regimens on patients undergoing minilaparotomy tubal ligation and also to see whether local anaesthesia and intravenous sedation/analgesia can be safely practised in a rural setup, where the infrastructure of a tertiary level institution was unavailable. Out of 729 patients, none were referred to a higher centre due to any surgical or anaesthetic problem and a lower rate of infection in the group receiving postoperative combination antibiotic supports the fact that female sterilisation can be performed safely with common antibiotic coverage available in the rural hospitals of developing countries with limited operative facilities.