Surely there has been exhaustive argument on the role of breasts in our culture, health and self esteem. And, yet, otherwise rational people again and again act like manic teenagers when it comes to the size of a woman's chest.
Back in the 1980s when the first battle over the safety of implants heated up, the FDA described small breasts as a “defect and a deformity” (though somehow, I haven't quite been offered that handicapped license plate yet). Their revulsion with women who didn't quite look like an hour glass (or a stick with two bumps) propelled them to approve the implants.
Such intriguing behavior for a room full of medical geeks ravaged by age themselves.
Finally, the failure rates of the implants and associated chronic disease forced them to pull the silicon implants from the market. The decision was facilitated by the promise of the safety of saline implants.
Um, expect they don't feel like marshmallows. That's how one doctor described it - silicon feels like a marshmallow, like a real breast; saline ripples. (Marshmallow??)
So, here we are again. Safety risks aside, the advisory board has mixed opinions about re-introducing the "more realistic" implants to the market. This from the LA Times:
"Breast implants do NOT last a lifetime," says an FDA handbook for patients. "You should be prepared for long-term follow-up, re-operations to treat complications and personal financial costs."
Supporters of silicone implants have concluded that their risks are outweighed by the benefit….
Although initial-rupture rates for Inamed implants are in the low single digits, the agency estimated that 10-year rates for cosmetic surgery patients could range as high as 38%. For breast reconstruction patients, facing more complicated surgery, the FDA staff estimated 10-year rates as high as 93%.
Sure, a 93% failure rate seems completely reasonable to make you look hotter in a bikini.
And, the local story about two sets of parents taking their teenage daughters to a plastic surgeon for "birthday breasts" is only further proof of the tenuous relationship our society has with its health v appearance.
Like any woman, I've had a conflicted relationship with my body. But, I've seen what's out there and, frankly, I'll take not quite filling out a sweater any day over most of the options out there - from leaky silicon implants to big breasts that look more like they belong on the business side of a cow than in a v-neck sweater. Comparisons like that, though, are as much a part of the problem as anything else. At some point, we've got to stop looking to the television and the promenading beach girls to get our sense of what's ok. I don't know how we get there, but high risk breast implants certainly aren't the right direction. Why can't everyone be 30? It's the trauma of youth that makes us all this crazy...
