Mastopexy: Treatment, Cost and Side Effects

Breasts add beauty to the overall features of a woman. However, the breasts lose their firmness with age, and an older woman is likelier to have droopier breasts than her young counterpart. Pregnancy is responsible for making the breasts saggy, as, during pregnancy the breasts become heavier, which stretches the mammary tissues causing the breasts to lose volume. Breasts are nothing but fat tissues that expand with weight gain. Too much of weight causes the breasts tissues to get pulled and lose firmness, thereby making them saggy.

Mastopexy is a surgery that is performed to raise the breasts. The other name of mastopexy is breast lift surgery. The surgery does not tamper with the original size of the breasts, in other words, the size of the breasts remains the same even after surgery. But, mastopexy can be performed along with breast augmentation to increase the size of the breasts. When the breasts begin to sag, the nipples also start sagging. Mastopexy aims at removing excess tissue from the breasts and realigning the nipples and the areolae so that they point forward and not downward. Before a mastopexy a patient needs to make sure that she abstains from smoking and stop taking certain medications like aspirin, anti-inflammatory drugs and herbal medications.

A breast lift is not a very complex procedure and one only requires an outpatient surgery. Before a patient is taken to the operation theater, the surgeon would mark the area of the skin where the nipples and the areolas would be repositioned. After that the patient would be anesthetized and the operation would begin.

The surgeon would remove the extra skin from the patient’s breasts and would reshape them. Now, the cut that the surgeon makes can vary, depending on the original shape of the breasts. There are primarily three techniques that can be used to make the incisions. The surgeon can make the cut along the areola. Inframammary folds are the areas where the line of the breasts at the bottom meets the chest. A cut can be made also along these lines horizontally. The surgeon can also make a vertical cut from the areola to the inframamary fold. The surgeon needs to bind the breasts tissues in order refashion them. Therefore, he/she might perform stitches deep inside the breasts. The size of the areolas might be decreased if need be. The last step of the surgery involves the consolidation of the breast skin and the incision is sewed up via stitches, surgical tapes or adhesives.

A woman can get a mastopexy if her breasts are sagging. A woman can understand if her breasts meet the benchmark of “saggy breasts” if she holds a pencil underneath her breasts and the support makes them stand. Age, pregnancy and weight gain are the leading causes behind saggy breasts. A woman who wants to raise her breasts can go for breast lift.

A breast lift is not recommended for pregnant women or those who are looking forward to conceiving and women who are breast-feeding. Any woman can get a breast lift, but it works well on women who have small but saggy breasts, because voluminous breasts tend to sag anyway.

Every surgery comes with risks, and so does breast lift. The most debilitating side effect of breast lift is that the lack of blood supply during the surgery can lead to the loss of the nipples and the areolas. Other side-effects include scarring which might remain for at least a year or two. The nipples are also somewhat affected in that they might become less sensitive. A woman can also face difficulties while suckling her baby owing to mastopexy.

A woman who has undergone a breast lift needs to take good care after the surgery to avoid bleeding and scarring. She might have to wear a special bra post surgery 24x7 prescribed by the surgeon, which can be removed only after the concerned doctor recommends. The patient must also abstain from sexual activities for at least two weeks after surgery. She must sleep on her back or sides to avoid exerting too much pressure on the new and improved breasts. For the same reason she must also avoid exercising and other stressful occupations. She might have to take pain killers to control the resulting agony that will crop up after surgery. She must get back to regular activities only when the doctor advices, after the stitches are removed or dissolved naturally.

It takes at least 4 to 5 weeks for the patient to completely recover and get back to normal activities after breast lift surgery.

In India the cost of mastopexy starts from INR 150,000.

The result of mastopexy is usually permanent. However a woman can go for another surgery after a few years to give a better contouring to the breasts.

Breasts can be naturally lifted through exercise. There are some exercises that aim at making the pectoral muscles underneath the breasts prominent. By strengthening the pectoral muscles the breasts are rendered a perky shape. These include bench press, where one has to lie down on the bench and make sure that the feet touches the ground. Then holding two dumbbells in each hand, she has to lift them vertically and bring them down 20 times. Other exercises include pushups, inverted wall pushups and swimming.