Breast Lift or Implants After Pregnancy: How the Options Differ
Dr. Smith discusses changes in breast volume and position after pregnancy and breastfeeding. He explains what a lift and an implant address, when they may be combined, and how an auto augmentation uses existing breast tissue.
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Key takeaways
- The discussion separates breast volume from breast position.
- Dr. Smith explains limitations of a lift or implant alone and why some patients discuss a combined approach.
- The video introduces auto augmentation using existing breast tissue for a selected group of patients.
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Video transcript
Transcript from the source video’s English caption track. The interviewer’s name is replaced with [interviewer].
0:00 So yes, breast surgery is tremendously powerful, and it comes in many different varieties. And there are three essentially three ways that we can address the breasts. We can make them larger, we can make them smaller, and we can change their position or, you know, more frequently lift them. And we can do combinations of those things.
0:26 The right operation depends on the patient's anatomy and her goals. For a patient that, especially if she's breastfed, there is often loss of volume. There's often loss of volume after breastfeeding, and this can lead to a very classic deflated upper pole appearance. It can also lead to ptosis or drooping. And this is a condition that is very effectively treated with a
0:51 breast lift, and there are several different kinds of breast lifts that we can get into in a different video. Um, but when we talk about a breast lift, it's important to remember that it will not address a volume deficit. If you don't like the fact that you lost some volume from your breast during pregnancy or breastfeeding, a breast lift itself will not address that. In fact, a breast lift by default will actually make your breasts
1:17 a little bit smaller, and the reason is that part of a breast lift involves removing extra skin. So if you have a certain breast tissue volume and it's droopy or ptotic, and you go and tighten the skin around it, you're shrinking everything. So even if your breast weighs the exact same amount it did before and after a breast lift, when you go and actually do that operation,
1:42 the breast is going to look and feel appreciably smaller in a lot of cases. So an isolated breast lift can be a really good option, but you have to make sure that you understand the ramifications of choosing that path. On the other hand, if you're someone whose breasts aren't that ptotic or aren't really drooping after pregnancy and breastfeeding, but they maybe lost some volume, a breast augmentation can be
2:07 a great approach. However, a breast augmentation, a breast implant is not going to provide a significant amount of lift. It is a real error to try to lift a nipple or an areola by more than about a centimeter at the absolute maximum by doing a breast augmentation alone. If you have volume loss and you also have some ptosis that you'd like to address, a combination breast augmentation
2:33 mastopexy is the way to go. That addresses both the size and the shape of the breast very effectively. [interviewer] asked about something called an auto augmentation. A breast auto augmentation is a really fascinating concept that we've been using more and more with great success. This is an operation, and it's great in the context of the postpartum period, where someone has lost volume from their breast.
2:59 They have tissue laxity, and the volume they do have is kind of redistributed to places they don't want it. Specifically, the volume has kind of moved from the upper pole with like a perky appearance to the lower pole with a more of a sagging appearance. So what we're doing with an auto augmentation, in addition to doing the kind of skin and soft tissue rearrangement that we're always doing with a breast lift, we're actually using your existing breast
3:24 tissue as an implant and placing that tissue in such a way that we're restoring upper pole fullness without an implant. So there is a very well-defined group of patients for whom this is a good option, and if it's something you're interested in, we should definitely discuss it during your consultation.