Breast Augmentation - History and Popularity

The history and poularity of Breast Enhancement Surgery

Women have always wanted bigger breasts?

Women (and their partners) have desired bigger breasts down the ages. Some of the earliest representations of the female form are of women with volutuous figures. Culturally such a shape was associated with fertility. While not all women want everything that comes with such a fuller figure many do want to enhance their breasts.

The first cosmetic breast enhancement procedures

The first surgical breast augmentation was performed around 1890 and used paraffin injections to achieve the desired results. We may be glad that this practice did not continue! By 1920 doctors no longer used this particular technique and had taken to using fat transplants from the patients own body.

Fatty tissue was which was surgically removed from the abdomen and buttocks was used to enhance the breasts. The 1950's saw the age of plastics and so it is no surprise that by then polyvinyl "sacs" were being used as implants. These achieved much better reults than had been possible previously.

The arrival of silicone implants

In the the 1980's silicone implants became very popular and today the commonest implants have a silicone shell filled with a salt-water solution known as saline. At one time gell filled implants were also popular.

Motivations stay the same

Although the technology of breast implants may have changed down the years the reasons that women seek breast enhancement surgery probably have not.In the main women who seek breast enhancement feel their breasts are too small, that they have uneven breasts or that they want to recapture the size and shape of the breasts they had before weight loss or pregnancy.

The rising popularity of Cosmetic breast surgery

Breast Augmentation, clinically referred to as Augmentation Mammoplasty, is the third most popular cosmetic surgery procedure in the United States with only nose reshaping (rhinoplasty) and liposuction being more popular. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons recorded over 250,000 breast augmentation procedures in 2003 in the US U.S. and the demand for the procedure continues to rise steadily.

Cosmetic surgery and popular culture

A more recent developments has been the rise of television shows , both factual and fiction which deal with the subject of cosmetic surgery and breast enhancement. This has made the procedure more visible to a wider range of people and may be helping to fuel the demand. What these shows sometimes fail to explain however is that cosmetic surgery is still surgery. It has risks and the outcome can not always be predicted with certainty.