Many women find that restoring a more youthful breast profile with a breast lift brings a kind of confidence that goes beyond appearance. It shows in your face, yes, but also in what you feel like doing with your day. There is no substitute for feeling at home in your own skin.
The satisfaction is not just anecdotal. A study found that 99% of women who had a breast lift would choose to have it again, not out of necessity, but because they considered it worthwhile. Among those surveyed, 91% reported improved self-esteem.
Breast augmentation has grown quickly among American women, but breast augmentation has actually been outpaced by the acceptance of breast lifts, which has grown twice as fast, 2-to-1. Why are so many women choosing this path back to the profile they remember so fondly?
A breast lift often follows one or more of life’s rewarding events or achievements. Childbearing, successful weight loss, or simply growing older and achieving a more comfortable place in life are among the occasions that leave the breasts drooping. This isn’t a price we necessarily have to pay.
More women are recognizing this. Breast lifts have increased 70% since 2000 and now outpace breast augmentation two to one.
It’s All You
Part of why breast lifts have outpaced even the rapid rise of breast augmentation is simple: a lift adds nothing to the body. Your own breast tissue is lifted, repositioned, and in some cases evened and balanced. Often the nipple is repositioned too, to suit the newly lifted contour.
Some women choose to add a measure of augmentation to their lift, shaping the upper breast without necessarily increasing overall size, if that is what they prefer.
What’s Involved
A surgical breast lift raises and reshapes the tissue with care, removing excess skin to reveal the renewed contour beneath. The areola can be reduced to the proportion it held in youth, as the nipple is repositioned.
Each procedure is as particular as the woman who chooses it, which is one reason to sit down with an experienced, board-certified plastic surgeon. Breast size, shape, and the degree of sagging that has developed over time all factor into the conversation you will have with your doctor. The technique that suits you best depends on your skin's elasticity and how much excess skin has formed.
Non-Surgical Steps Are an Option, Too
Depending on your goals and your particular situation, there are non-surgical ways to lift and tighten breast tissue. One such approach relies on high-definition laser energy.
The laser breast lift tightens the collagen fibers within breast tissue. It requires no anesthetic and, in many cases, almost no recovery time, though the results take shape more gradually and do not last as long as the surgical procedures that remain so popular.
Deciding which option is right for you calls for a conversation with a plastic surgeon experienced across the full range of techniques. We would be glad to have that conversation with you.