Breast Augmentation – A History of Implants

Mar 24
09:22

2011

Andrea Avery

Andrea Avery

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Breast augmentation and the desire to increase bust size is not a new phenomenon. Since the 1890s, doctors and women around the world have been searching for a surgical way to make breasts larger.

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The desire for bigger breasts is not a new one,Breast Augmentation – A History of Implants Articles although breast augmentation surgery seems to be a modern phenomenon to those who do not fully understand its history. This may be due to the vast number of women who are opting for this completely elective procedure, but the truth is that the first attempt to artificially grow the breasts from the inside out occurred in the 1890s, long before the era of modern surgery.

The first attempt to artificially increase the bust size involved injecting paraffin wax into the chest. While this did increase the size, the results were not positive. Women reported lumpy, hard breasts, and many developed infections as the body reacted to the foreign presence of the wax.

Doctors decided to try enlarging the breasts using the body’s own tissue. Fat tissue was harvested from other areas of the body and injected into the breasts. While this stopped the problem of the body rejecting the tissue, since it was the patient’s own tissue, it created a new problem: the fat tissue was absorbed back into the body, and the result was breasts that looked deformed and lumpy. Also, poor cleanliness at the time led to infections.

By the mid 1900s, doctors stopped trying to use injections in their attempts at breast augmentation, and instead started implanting objects into the body. Early implants were made from all types of material, including polyvinyl sponges, Teflon-silicon, ground rubber, and even ox cartilage. The results from these implants at first looked better than the injectables, but over time the materials shrank or hardened, leaving women with hard, lumpy breasts once again. Also, infection rates were high.

In 1961, a team of doctors realized that silicone gel in a bag somewhat behaved like the tissue in a woman’s breasts, and the first silicone implant was developed and utilized. The problem with these early implants was the fact that the shells tended to harden, which could eventually create cracks and allow some of the silicone to leak. Not long after introducing the implants, the plastic surgery industry developed polyurethane shells, which were much more durable and allowed the woman to maintain a natural feel and shape to her breasts while increasing the size through breast augmentation.

The problems with these early implants did not surface until a later date. Eventually, patients began to experience leaking and rupturing of their implants, and some researchers began to believe that they were causing connective tissue diseases. Over time, a new option, saline filled implants, was introduced to the market. These were considered much safer, as leaks or ruptures released something into the body that the body could simply reabsorb. The United States eventually banned silicone implants because of the risks they posed, with the ban being lifted in the early 2000s when safer silicone implants surfaced. In the 1990s doctors experimented with breast augmentation using soybean oil implants, but this proved to be unsafe as the soybean oil could cause dangerous reactions if it leaked in the body.

Today, women considering breast augmentation have several implant choices, but all are a version of silicone or saline. These have been proven to be fairly safe over decades of use, so women can feel confident in their choice no matter which one they choose.