Surgical treatment of atonic uterine hemorrhage. (A) Ligation of the uterine artery. The artery crosses over the ureter and is ligated beyond this point at the uterine corpus. (B) Hypogastric artery ligation. Ligation of the anterior division of the internal iliac artery is performed after careful identification and retraction of the ureter, which usually overlies the bifurcation of the iliac artery into the external and internal iliac branches.