WA women are increasingly choosing to be permanently sterilised, including 20-somethings deciding early in life to be child-free.

Doctors said in the past the medical system was “paternalistic” and refused to carry out a sterilisation on a woman until she was aged over 30. But attitudes had changed, meaning more procedures were being carried out on younger women, including those with a smaller number of children or none.

WA Health Department figures showed there were 1526 women who had elective sterilisation in 2017/18, a 12 per cent increase compared to 2013/14.

This included a 16 per cent rise in sterilisations — from 529 to 617 — among women aged 25-34, the age range many give birth. Over the five-year period, there were 7353 cases, including 118 women aged 15-24, 3016 aged 25-34, 3750 aged 35-44 and 469 between 45 and 54-years-old.

Most cases for the youngest age group related to teenagers and young women with disabilities. Many of these cases are determined by the State Administrative Tribunal.

The statistics do not include women who underwent the surgery for medical reasons, such as secondary surgeries related to cancer operations.

Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists spokesman Dr Scott White said many women chose to be sterilised because of its “convenience”.

“It comes down to choice,” he said.

“Some of the factors that might influence their choice are related to the convenience of not having to worry about any other form of contraception.”

Dr White said most women who were sterilised had the procedure to either remove or clamp their fallopian tubes at the same time as their caesarean operation for their last child.

But he said there was a small percentage who had the operation to ensure they would never fall pregnant.

“There’s clearly a variety of reasons women never want to have children,” he said. “We would generally counsel them away from permanent sterilisation procedures, especially at a young age because there is such a capacity for regret later in life.

“As a clinician you go through a detailed informed consent process to make sure they’re absolutely confident that their decision is the right one for them.”

He said doctors took the view that “this is their body and if a woman, even a young woman, chooses a permanent procedure then that’s within their rights”.

“The medical system used to be more paternalistic and we used to say you can’t have your tubes done until you are over 30 or 35 or you’ve had a certain number of children,” Dr White said. “But these days we’re more inclined to do permanent procedures on younger women and those with smaller number of children, as well as women who have not had children.”

Dr White said vasectomies were more reliable as a contraception compared to female sterilisation, which had a failure rate as high as one in 200, compared to vasectomy failure of one in 1000.