November 17, 2012 | Breast Lift
4 minute read
As women age and experience life, it is natural for their breasts to lose shape and resilience – the ‘youthful spring’ that they once had. This is a natural result of child birth, nursing, and weight gain and loss, and at some point many women find themselves wishing they had a more youthful shape and bounciness again, but they do not want to have implants put into their body.
For women who do not want implants, a breast lift, or Mastopexy, may be just the thing to give them a renewed, youthful appearance without the use of implants. Breast lifts are generally ideal for women who find that their breasts are large enough, they just need them reshaped.
The way breast begin to sag after the life events described above is called ptosis. As breasts grown and shrink in the normal course of having children or experiencing weight loss and gain the supporting structure of the breast, the skin and ligaments also grow. The problem occurs when the breast shrinks to its old size, as it does after child birth or as a result of weight loss. As a woman gets older the skin and ligaments’ ability to shrink and adapt to the smaller breast size is diminished. This is what causes the sagging of breasts as a woman ages.
Sagging Breast
There are several different degrees to this sagging, or ptosis, and several different types of breast surgery depending on the exact shape of the breast, how much breast tissue remains and how much the breast itself is sagging.
The inframammary fold is where the bottom of the breast meets the chest wall; in young women, the nipple is nearly always over this inframammary line, and it is the goal of the breast lift surgery to place the nipple once again over the inframammary fold, at the same time reshaping the breast so that it once again sits proudly upon the chest, with a return to a youthful shape and size.
Mild ptosis is defined when the nipple remains at the inframammary fold, whereas in severe cases the nipple is pointing directly downward, and varying degrees of grade II, or moderate ptosis. There is also another condition in which the nipple remains at the inframammary fold but the rest of the breast tissue lies beneath the fold. This last sort is called pseudoptosis or glandular ptosis. All of these different types and degrees of sagging may be remedied by breast lift surgery, with astoundingly good results, and without the need to have implants installed.
Ideal Candidates For Breast Lift Surgery
For breast lift surgery it is recommended that the patient be at a stable, target weight and is not planning on any more children; the reason for this is that the growth of the breast through weight gain or another child birth reduces the effect of the breast lift surgery and shortens the effectiveness of the surgery acutely.
However, if you are at your target weight and will be having no more children, if you have sagging breasts a breast lift may be just the thing you need to regain the youthful shape and perkiness of your breasts.
The surgery itself is generally an outpatient procedure that will take 3 to 4 hours on average, and involves several different incisions, depending on the amount of sag and how much the breast will have to be lifted and shaped. Your surgeon will be able to describe the procedure in detail. And don’t forget – for all breast surgery, a woman should be smoke free for at least three months!
Don’t wait any longer – if your girls are headed south, but you like the size of your breasts, a breast lift may be just the thing you need to regain a youthful spring in your step.