Estimated Annual Number of Requests for Postpartum Sterilization That Go Unfulfilled Because of Medicaid Policy Barriers, and Unintended Pregnancies in the Subsequent Year.

The pie chart shows the outcomes of the estimated 255,000 requests for federally funded, postpartum sterilizations made each year. In the subsequent year, an estimated 29,000 unintended pregnancies will occur among the 62,000 women with sterilization requests that are unfulfilled because of Medicaid policy barriers, costing taxpayers $215 million annually. Estimates are based on a cost-analysis model described in Borrero et al.⁵