How to Choose a Breast Implant Size?
When choosing the appropriate breast implant size, it is important to balance your own desires with that of your tissue and body characteristics. Often, the desired breast implant size is simplified into a bra cup size or volume by both you and your plastic surgeon, and this should be avoided. An overzealous attempt to achieve the desired cup size or volume without regard to the characteristics of your tissue can lead to an unnatural result that may leave one unsatisfied with your breast augmentation.
Amanda Seyfried (Photgraph Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons & Daniel Åhs Karlsson)
A majority of women would have some sort of breast asymmetry, which could either be the size of one’s breast, the nipple location or the size of the nipple-areolar complex. After a breast augmentation, this asymmetry will become more prominent and more noticeable. Thus, one should be aware of this prior to a breast augmentation.
Can the Asymmetry be Corrected or Minimized?
Your plastic surgeon will determine if one would need a much larger breast implant on one side of your breast to minimize the size discrepancy of one’s breasts. One may need a larger implant on the smaller breast as compared to the other. This is determined by your plastic surgeon before and also during your plastic surgery. Your plastic surgeon may use a “sizer”, which could be an implant series of different sizes or an inflatable breast implant that is inflated with saline or air during your surgery to determine the right breast implant size. This enables your plastic surgeon to minimize the breast size discrepancy that one previously have by being able to choose the right breast implant before finally placing them during surgery .
Choosing the Correct Breast Implant Size
The desired breast size is determined by multiple factors, such as desired breast size of the patient, breast measurements, and the characteristics of one’s breast and chest wall. The breast width is one such measurement that a plastic surgeon utilizes to determine the correct implant size. The selection of the implant is combined with your desired projection which allows your plastic surgeon to choose the appropriate size of breast implant. Using implant and breast dimensions rather than the desired volume will yield for a more natural result.
Emmanuel De La Cruz MD, PLLC
