Breast Implants Won’t Do These Four Things

While breast augmentation surgery is extremely effective at enlarging one’s chest size, they are certain things that they cannot do. These limitations of breast implants are important to understand as many women have misconceptions about them. Not having a realistic expectation of what breast implants can achieve can lead to some level of postoperative disappointment.

Breast implants will not do the same thing as a breast lift. It will not lift a saggy breast or move the nipple higher up on the breast mound. It will make the breast bigger but it will not improve the sagginess. This is one of the biggest misconceptions that I come across in my Indianapolis plastic surgery practice. To properly understand that statement, we must first define what saggy or ptosis is. if the nipple sits anywhere below the lower breast crease, this is significant ptosis that will change your options for your breast surgery. Some form of breast lift with an implant must be considered, a combined mastopexy-augmentation surgery is needed. If not, an implant will make the breast bigger but the nipple will end up on the bottom pole of the bra…pointing downward.

Breast implants will not bring the breasts closer together if your breasts are far apart. Many women have seen pictures of breast augmentation results in which they comment about how ‘widely spaced the breast implants are’ and they don’t want a large valley between their breasts. Whether you will or won’t have that look after surgery is predictable beforehand. If your breasts are widely spaced (positioned way to the side of your chest wall), you will have widely spaced breasts afterward. There is not getting around these anatomical limitation. Implants will not move the breast mound inward. It does fill out the breast mound and will move the inside of the breast mound closer to the sternum. But if the implants are placed too close together, the nipples will point outward or sit on the outside of the breast.

Implants won’t get rid of stretch marks or any skin irregularities on the breast. Women are usually concerned about these issues if they exist on the upper pole of the breast where they can be seen in certain types of clothing. In expanding the skin surrounding the breast, stretch marks will actually get bigger…but they often become less noticeable because they become flatter. At the very least, plan on those skin imperfections staying the same. Consider it a bonus if they actually look better.

Lastly, breast implants rarely make for natural cleavage by themselves. While I try to position implants as closed as possible, they are limited in that direction by the pectoralis muscle which sits on top of them. While some women can get natural cleavage without a bra, they usually have closely space breasts to begin with and may be getting fairly large implants. As a general rule, bras make cleavage…and breast implants make it possible for a bra to do so.