Big Boobs Bounce Back
By Jenifer Joseph ABCNews.com
Tracy, a 34-year-old mother of
three, contemplated having breast implants
for 10 years before finally taking the saline
plunge last month.
“I chose to do this, ” she says, “because after
having nothing all your life, you get a little
depressed when you put clothes on and they don’t
fit. The pros must outweigh the cons. They did for
me.”
Tracy is among the new generation of
breast-enhancement sisters who have not been put
off by the litigious thrashing implant makers have
endured in recent years.
In fact, the number of
women having breast implants
has quadrupled since 1992,
and the U.S.
breast-enlargement rate is
now higher than ever before,
says the American Society of
Plastic and Reconstructive
Surgeons.
Slippery Silicone
Slope
Dr. Ronald Iverson, the
immediate past president of
the society, attributes the explosion in breast
enlargements to a shift in public confidence in the
safety of implants.
“The impact of all the negative stories about
silicone implants was horrendous, and it scared a
lot of women away,” says Iverson, whose implant
business is back to its 1990 level—about 125 a
year. “But the data continues to show that they’re
safe and effective.”
Despite more than a dozen major
epidemiological studies that failed to show a link
between implants and any threatening illnesses,
more than 170,000 women claimed that their
silicone gel implants sabotaged their health.
The headlines of the early
’90s—“Breast Implants:
Ticking Time Bombs?”—are
nowhere to be found these
days, especially now that the
silicone sort are banned except
for use in women involved in
clinical studies.
Only Saltwater Bombs
With saline implants, the most common complaints
are severe postsurgical pain and infection, and
hardening of the breast tissue. If the implants
rupture, which happens to about 3 percent of
them, the saline solution is absorbed by the body.
Dr. Michael Vincent, a plastic surgeon in
Rockville, Md., says most of his patients are happy
with their saline implants. He just finished one
more breast enlargement surgery and, he says, now
has one more satisfied customer.
“Ninety nine percent of them love their new
breasts and have better self images,” says the
16-year plastic surgery veteran. “Society, TV,
movies—there’s a trend in what women see as a
beautiful body image. I provide the service, and the
demand is there.”
Still, there are some women, like MTV star
Jenny McCarthy, who regret having implants
because they feel they’re no longer taken seriously.
Men talk to the boobs, not to her, McCarthy wrote
in her first book Jen-X.
Tracy doesn’t have those regrets. She walks
proudly with her full B cups.
“This is a personal decision,” Tracy says, “and
it is not for everyone. If I could turn back the clock
and do it all over again, you bet I would.”
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