It’s something I’ve never had to worry about but have had friends go through, and sometimes, regret. We’re talking about a tubal ligation, and women have it when they think they’re donehaving children – but what if you get married again and want to conceive? Tubal ligations prevent you from getting pregnant, but if you want to reverse them – while possible – it’s often complicated, expensive, and I would imagine, painful.

Robotic surgery is being implemented in everything from prostatectomies to hysterectomiesto even carrying trays of medicine in hospitals. It’s rapidly growing popularity is fortunately allowing doctors to see and maneuver better inside the body using the robotic “arms.”

Zahn writes that Montalto especially likes the three-dimensional view you get with a robot. He also, like many surgeons, likes being able to “zoom into the fallopian tube which is tiny, almost like putting blood vessels back together again,” he told Zahn. Robotic-assisted surgery additionally allows surgeons to move the “wrists” on the robotic arms, which are controlled viaa console, which can reach places human hands have difficulty going, giving them “even greater control over the delicate procedure.”

More than 650,000 women undergo tubal ligation in the US each year, permanently ending their fertility, according to Catholic Health. Studies furthermore show that within five years of undergoing a tubal ligation, approximately six percent of women decide they want to reverse the procedure in the hopes of conceiving.

Recovery time from robotic surgery – which has been compared to laparoscopic surgery – is about one to two weeks, much shorter than a c-section – which can take four to six weeks (but don’t expect, like me, to be able to go running at the six-week mark!)