In today’s world, women no longer have to live with breasts they don’t like or breasts that have sagged with age. Youthful looking breasts that appear natural, firm, and even are much more attainable than ever before. In fact, the most challenging aspect of your breast enhancement procedure might be picking the right one for your body. Plastic surgeons often perform a breast lift or breast augmentation separately or together as one combined procedure. Each procedure offers important benefits and changes for a woman’s breasts; the trick is to determine which makes the most sense for you.
Comparing the Surgeries
A breast lift procedure, called mastopexy, is performed in order to restore sagging breasts to their natural, more lifted position. During a lift, the plastic surgeon will both lift the existing breast tissue along the body and eliminate excess skin. To do this, an incision is made around the areola and then downward from below the nipple and along the natural crease of the breast. Extra skin and tissue will be removed from the lower portion of the breast. The nipple and areola will be lifted to a new position in the center of the relocated breast tissue. When the procedure is finished, the breasts will appear firmer, rounder, and back in their proper place.
Breast augmentation uses breast implants to increases the size of the breasts. Breast augmentations can be done using incisions under the arm, around the nipple, or in the breast crease. The decision will be made for your breast surgery after careful consideration and a discussion with your plastic surgeon. After making the incisions, your surgeon will create a pocket to accommodate each implant either beneath the breast tissue, beneath the pectoral muscle, or a combination thereof. Your new implants will be inserted, your incisions closed, and your surgery completed.
Both surgeries are performed under general anesthesia and can last up to three or four hours, depending on the extent of work required to achieve your desired results. Now that you understand how the procedures differ, it’s time to think about which one might work best for your needs
Do You Need a Breast Lift?
The best candidates for a breast lift are healthy women who do not smoke and who live healthy, active lives. They have also experienced a change in the look and feel of their breasts over time, leaving them disappointed with the way their breasts now look. Sometimes these women are middle-aged or older, having suffered the effects that the aging process and gravity can take on their bodies. In other cases, younger women who have had children or have breastfed can see a loss of volume as well as stretching of the skin, which leaves them sagging.
Considering the toll that pregnancy, breastfeeding, and even the simple aging process can take on your breasts, it’s no wonder so many women find themselves in need of a breast lift. In fact, basically every woman is at risk for sagging breasts and stretched-out skin. If this sounds like you, a mastopexy procedure is best performed on women who have finished breastfeeding and bearing children, since these can reverse all the hard work of your surgeon. There’s no perfect time to seek out a breast lift, just the time that seems right for you.
Do You Need Breast Augmentation?
Breast lift surgeries deal solely with the tissue that already exists, manipulating it to recreate more youthful looking breasts. If you’re thinking about a breast augmentation, you might not even be concerned about repairing sagging breasts or lost volume. Many breast augmentation patients are looking for the bigger breasts they have always wanted but never had. For this reason, there are many sizes of breast implants available to give doctors the ability to meet their patients’ expectations.
Breast implantation surgeries offer benefits to women with various needs. They can serve to replace breast tissue removed during a mastectomy, to repair genetic or developmental abnormalities, to enhance natural breast volume, to even out breast asymmetry, to replace lost breast volume after dramatic weight loss, and to revise or correct a previous breast augmentation surgery that did not meet the patient’s desires. As with a breast lift, good candidates for a breast augmentation should also be non-smokers in good overall physical health who have realistic goals for their outcomes and a positive outlook. Do some of these needs for breast augmentation sound familiar? Maybe this procedure is the one for you.
Could You Possibly Need Both?
Many women will read through these descriptions and still not be able to decide because they both sound right! If you’re in this situation, don’t worry; plenty of women experience both sagging breasts and lost volume, or stretched-out skin and a desire for bigger breasts. It’s very common to see both a breast lift and augmentation scheduled together to achieve the patient’s ultimate goals. Many sagging breasts could look better if they were also bigger; many too-small breasts could do with a little lift.
The breast lift plus augmentation surgery is especially common among mothers. Pregnancy stretches the skin of the breasts, often staying that way and leaving the breasts to hang low with the nipples pointing downward. Breastfeeding is notorious for leaving women’s breasts with less volume and mass once you’ve weaned your baby. Smaller, saggy breasts can be frustrating for these women, often affecting their self-esteem and how they feel when they put on clothes in the morning. Since the procedures are an easy team-up in the world of plastic surgery, there’s no need to choose just one if you feel like you need them both.
Discuss Your Options with a Plastic Surgeon
The best way to make the right decision for your body is to get the expert advice from a reputable plastic surgeon.
Dr. Rubinstein is the ideal surgeon to provide you with information and an opinion on whether a breast lift, breast augmentation, or opting for both procedures is your best choice. During consultation, Dr. Rubinstein will utilize the advanced Canfield VECTRA 3D imaging system to help patients plan their procedures. With this system three-dimensional photographs are taken of the patient and then digital alterations can be made to life-like models, allowing patients to view the potential results of each procedure as well as the different size and shape implants available. This is the best way for patients to view the possible results that can be achieved and choose the procedures that are right for them.
Laser & Cosmetic Surgery Specialists, the only specialty plastic surgery practice in the Hudson Valley area with an on-site joint commission certified surgical suite, is located at 200 Stony Brook Court #2 in Newburgh, New York. To contact Dr. Rubinstein, please call 845-863-1772.
