Say bye bye to bras?

OMG. So I went to Phuket, Thailand in 2008 for a story that I writing for a magazine here in Melbourne. I watched some Aussie mums have post-baby breast implants and, let me tell you, it looked pretty gosh darn painful.

Apparently, there's a new surgery using Breform which is a breast enhancement that functions like a sports bra under the skin or as the manufacturer says it's an 'internal bra system' (yikes, a 'system'...sounds like a machine from the future). The benefit of this new technology is that it prevents the skin from stretching or sagging unlike traditional implant surgery. The Breform is made of a special mesh which, upon being placed underneath the skin, will over time become incorporated into the breast tissue.

The Breform has been licensed in Europe but the USFDA says it will be about 10 years before Breform is approved; it needs to undergo lots of testing but preliminary studies show that it's pretty safe thus far. In spite of the good results, some experts are concerned that the Breform will be dangerous or present a cancer risk for pregnant or breastfeeding women whose breasts might outgrow the internal bra.

Hmm. Impants that leak or mesh that you can potentially outgrow? Can you think of anything worse?

Photo credit: www.Breform.com

Lisa Rinna: I look like a freak

An admission from Lisa Rinna appears on MomLogic, in which the former Melrose Place actress and mother of two comes clean about her plastic surgeries and regretting going a little too far. Asked about what surgeries she regrets she said:

"My cheeks. I had Juvederm put in my cheeks. That's what I overdid -- big time. I tried it because my girlfriends did it. I thought: I'll do it! I saw a photo and I was like, "Oh Jesus. That's no good. That's NOT good." What I learned is that I don't really need it. You get older and insecure and you think you need it and you don't. I learned less is more. Keep your skin good. But, I still like Botox. It's great! It doesn't change the shape of my face. When you change your face, you don't look like yourself. Looking fresher is one thing. I look like a freak! I always said I wouldn't change my face, but I did it. I can't not be honest about it. I'd look like a fool. It's so obvious. I don't believe in lying. I used to feel like it was nobody's business. But when this happened, I realized I couldn't hide it."

Hmm. Can't say I feel sorry for the woman. Um..injecting things in your face is never a good thing. I mean, hello...botox is a poison. Besides, if she didn't 'look like a freak' she never would have said anything in the first place!

Sources:
http://www.momlogic.com/2009/01/lisa_rinna_on_plastic_surgery.php

Saggy boobs? Don't blame breastfeeding

Some of you will pleased to know, a study has just been published in Aesthetic Surgery Journal that debunks the very widely held perception that breastfeeding causes saggy boobs. Well, it doesn't. The authors argue that greater age, higher BMI, greater number of pregnancies, larger pre-pregnancy bra cup size and history of smoking were significant risk factors in the development of sagging breasts.

Considering complaints of saggy breasts are one of the most common reasons for undergoing plastic surgery post-birth, it looks like women will have to blame their saggy boobs on something other than childbearing.

And yes, I did take that photo in Thailand. In fact, I probably know a little bit too much about breast implants as a result.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/5m9br3

Tales from Thailand

Okay so I have a super dodgy internet connection so that has totally blown my blogging plans but I'm going to attempt to get in all I can right now. I spent all day yesterday at Phuket International Hospital interviewing surgeons, following patients around and sitting in on consultations...and I WATCHED A BREAST AUGMENTATION SURGERY. Like not just 'watched', I mean I got in scrubs, stood over this women on a gurney and chatted to the surgeon as he did the operation, explaining every single step in great detail. It was perhaps one of the most confronting and absolutely amazing things I have every done in my life. But...of course....it's all very complicated, especially because it was only 2 hours before that I had met the woman having the surgery. It was very strange to see her lifeless on a table having her breasts basically taken apart and put back together when just earlier she had been choosing which implants she wanted.

I'm not going to give too much away right now as there is a whole article that will be published in the next few weeks but I will say that medical tourism is a very complicated issue. I was blown away by the doctors that I met. They are highly-educated, highly skilled surgeons who are actually caught between a rock and a hard place, trying to cater to the market of foreign patients that are flocking to Thailand for medical procedures but also trying to practice ethically.

All I can say is that I don't know what to say. Still trying to process everything and this has definitely changed some of my views on plastic surgery.

I met a woman who had had lipo, breast life and body countouring all in one go. She wasnt doing it because she wanted to be the hottest mum on the block, she was doing it because she wanted to feel better about herself. It is very easy to judge women who have these procedures as being selfish and narcissistic. When they are sitting in front of you, clearly in pain from having their body parts shifted up and expanded....it's hard to feel anything but sympathy. What I saw in that operating room was intense. I cannot even imagine the pain that this woman will feel when she is recovering for the next few weeks.

On the upside, I got to fondle a big basket of breast implants.

More to come.

Oh, Phuket is beautiful too :-)

Ulrika Jonsson hates her post-baby boobs

It was only a few weeks ago that Swedish mother of 5, Ulrika Jonsson was railing against the skinny post-baby bodies of her fellow celebritiy mums. She claimed she was not going to worry about losing weight and was proud of her stretch marks. Today she written that she hates her huge post-pregnancy breasts and is planning to have them reduced:

"In my first pregnancy in 1994 when I was 27, I went from a D up to an FF-cup. When I moaned about this to my dear friend Vic Reeves, his eyes lit up and he asked whether the double F stood for ' F***** g Fantastic'.

I set a record this time when I was pregnant, though - I eclipsed all physical possibilities, I thought, when I had to order an I-cup over the internet. Marks & Spencer goes up to a J-cup but its best seller is a 36C.

I was truly repulsed by my breasts and I think my husband, Brian Monet, was stunned into a nine-month silence. I likened myself to a fat, ageing porn star.

Standing in the shower, I could not see the rest of my body when looking down. And don't even get me started on the backache and the painful red grooves the bra straps left on my shoulders.

Which brings me to the post-pregnancy bust. If anything could be less desirable than bloated, humongous 'mummy bags', it's a deflated pair.

You see, I know what's coming over the next few months. Not unlike a tyre with a slow puncture, they will gradually diminish and I will, before you can say the word 'mammoplasty', be left with what can be described only as two ping-pong balls in bin liners."

I've conflicted about this. I think women should be able to make choices about what they do with their bodies. One person's decision to have plastic surgery has nothing to do with me. But, at the same time, it makes me uncomfortable that she frames her justification for wanting a reduction around whether or not her husband would approve. She also says she is not doing the surgery for 'self-esteem' reasons like other women who want to have bigger breasts so they can feel more 'womanly'. Well, of course she is?! If she is uncomfortable with having large breasts and is constantly trying to hide them, I'm not sure how that isn't a matter of self-esteem.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/5z872p

Mummy makeovers allegedly 'safe'

A new study reviewing the safety of plastic surgery following pregnancy confirms "women who choose a mommy makeover do not appear to be at any additional risk of complications compared to those women who have one surgery, like a tummy tuck in Los Angeles, and then down the road elect to have a cosmetic breast procedure."

Oh did I mention that the surgeon who performed the study, Grant Stevens, founded Marina Plastic Surgery in Los Angeles? The study is based on procedures done at this surgical centre over the last 10 years. This is the same doctor that tells women that they should 'embrace the feeling of a being a woman' by having a mummy makeover.

Sources: www.amommymakeover.com
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/08/prweb1175234.htm

Making more beautiful mothers with a nip and tuck

Well, I have seen the future and it is not good.

A new children's book has been written by a plastic surgeon in order to explain why 'mommy' will be more beautiful when she has a tummy tuck...and it's being released on Mother's Day.

"My Beautiful Mommy" is aimed at kids ages four to seven and features a plastic surgeon named Dr. Michael (a musclebound superhero type) and a girl whose mother gets a tummy tuck, a nose job and breast implants. Before her surgery the mom explains that she is getting a smaller tummy: "You see, as I got older, my body stretched and I couldn't fit into my clothes anymore. Dr. Michael is going to help fix that and make me feel better." Mom comes home looking like a slightly bruised Barbie doll with demure bandages on her nose and around her waist."

So 'mommy' recovers easily, with no complications and is 'more beautiful' after all of her fat has been sucked away. Excellent message to send to young children.

Seriously? No, really. SERIOUSLY?! I have no words.

Source: http://www.newsweek.com/id/132240/page/1

A picture is worth a thousand words

This is quite possibly the best possible cartoon to describe the purposes of this blog. I love it.

Source: http://www.mikhaela.net

http://feministing.com/archives/008067.html#comments

Post-baby butchery

I pity the silly Californian plastic surgeon who says this about the post-baby body, according to the New York Times:

“The severe physical trauma of pregnancy, childbirth and breast-feeding can have profound negative effects that cause women to lose their hourglass figures,” he said.

Dr. David Stoker and his colleagues at Marina Plastic Surgery Associates (MPSA) only highlight a disturbing and ever-growing trend capitalising on the butchery of post-baby bodies. Called a 'mommy makeover' the MPSA website plays on women's bodily insecurities with their slogan 'Embrace the feeling of a being a woman' as a ploy to encourage women to have their bodies cut apart and fat sucked out with the promise of being a happier, better mother.

Before people start writing in and saying women can choose to have surgery if they feel the need, well, hold on because I am not judging anyone's choices here. My problem with the 'mommy makeover' is that it introduces medical management and pathologises the post-baby body as a problem to fixed. Furthermore, it implies that the only way women can ever be fulfilled is if they have an 'hourglass figure' (which by the way, is pretty much disappearing as women's bodies have so dramatically changed shape over the past 40 years).

The post-baby surgery makeover is framed as an empowering haven for women who 'hate' their stretch marks and excess 'fat' and also primes women for anxiety about their 'shameful' bodies. This is a particularly dangerous construction because empowerment and liberation are actually equated with intense scrutiny of the post-baby body. Women now must have a perfect birth, be a 'good' mother and show no physical signs of having experienced the process. As mothers are juggling working with motherhood, this post-baby surgery ploy is just another 'shift' in which women need to negotiate their body image and 'bouncing back' as if it was another job. Even more unsettling is that the exaggerated importance of having a perfectly slender post-baby body guarantees men an unimpeded brand of female sexuality and in a number of ways masculinises women's bodies by allowing them to slip in and out of 'reproduction' without even breaking a sweat. Using surgery as an answer to women's bodily anxieties only creates beauty hierarchies among women: the attractive alpha mothers who 'bounce back' are always on top because they are beautiful and fit and the 'fat' 'unattractive' mothers are seen as lazy and value-less.

Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/fashion/04skin.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin
http://www.amommymakeover.com/

Mummy's little helper no longer requires batteries

According to the Houston Chronicle, it's all about nip and tuck when it comes to 'bouncing back'. Called a 'mommy makeover' in the US, more women in their mid-30s are having plastic surgery to rebound from the aftermath of birth.

Women start saying, 'Hmmm, I don't have to live with this body I've inherited from these kids,' "says Paul Fortes, a Houston plastic surgeon. " 'I don't have to be like my mother.' "

So basically, $30,000 and an unsettlingly high level of risk will get you 'back in your jeans' more comfortably. The debate about plastic surgery is not new for feminists but one that is only exacerbated by popular culture. When did it become okay for women to willingly subject themselves to be sliced and diced with veritable instruments of torture while they are unconscious and naked on a surgical table? And then of course, there is the recovery....swollen, bruised and bloody for many, many weeks.

Is this what the post-baby body comes down to? Why do flat stomachs have to be our only source of self?

Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/5133475.html