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PLASTIC SURGERY NEWS, SURGERY NEWS, COSMETIC SURGERY NEWS Current NEWS  |
More and more married women are going in for breast implants
Soumik Dey
Vadodara, February 28: * UNDER pressure from parents to have a child soon, a Bharuch couple decided that what was required was a breast implant for the woman. So the couple told their folks they were going on a pilgrimage but came to a Vadodara plastic surgeon. Surgery done, they returned home. ‘‘I felt that with my wife having fuller breasts, sex would be more enjoyable and we’d be able to bear a child sooner,’’ said the husband, an advocate.
* AN NRI woman from Kheda went for breast implants because she wanted to wear certain dresses that don’t look good on women with small breasts. Her store-keeper husband readily agreed to have the operation done in Gujarat because it costs a sixth of what it would in the U.S.
* A CLOTH merchant from Surat says that, in the initial meetings before their arranged marriage, he convinced her that she should get a breast job done. ‘‘My wife is very pretty, otherwise,’’ he said. ‘‘After our doubts about breast feeding were dispelled by the surgeon, we went ahead.’’
COSMETIC surgeons in conservative Gujarat say that an increasing number of married women are going under the lancet for breast enhancement.
One surgeon said that two years back, he used to perform only four such operations a year; now, he performs as many in just a month. Figures from other surgeons and companies selling implants confirm the trend.
Apex Marketing, Bangalore, which sells both silicone- and saline-filled implants had sold 2,800 pairs in Gujarat in 2003. In 2004 the figure rose to more than 4,000. And Technomed Marketing, Delhi, which sold 960 pairs in Gujarat in 2003, said the sales figure more than doubled in 2004.
Surgeons note that women in Gujarat tend to go for surgery only after marriage. They tend to think that men might otherwise feel offended.
Said one benefactor of breast surgery, ‘‘My husband may have found it repelling to discover I had implants. So it was only after marriage, and with his permission, that I went for the surgery.’’
Although they are trained chiefly in corrective surgery, many plastic surgeons are turning to lucrative cosmetic surgery. Correction of congenital disorders are taking the back seat in their practice.
‘‘Earlier we just used to get NRIs looking for a bargain,’’ said Dr Himanshu Naik, a plastic surgeon of Vadodara. ‘‘But now with silicone implants getting cheaper, we find several educated couples coming to us and saying that the woman needs breast implants. On average (a pair of) 220-280 ml implants are enough to give 5 cms extra projection and a well-defined cleavage.’’
The surgery costs Rs 50,000-60,000, including the price of the implants, the surgeon’s fee, hospitalisation and medicine costs. So middle-class women can now afford them.
Another reason for the trend is that the operation takes hardly an hour and the patient needs to remain in hospital for no more than a week. Said Dr Pratik Shah, a surgeon from Surat, ‘‘American surgeons take more than double that time for the operation. Given the sheer volume of surgeries we are handling in recent years, we have become much more adept.’’
Also driving the trend are television programmes that have dispelled myths. A common question asked of surgeons is whether the implants will impair breast-feeding. They say they explain to patients how the implants are placed in pockets behind the pectoral muscles and hence won’t affect the mammary glands, which secrete milk.
Conscientious surgeons also educate patients on the risks, such as the chance of capsular contraction. They also tell them that in the absence of Indian standards, most surgeons tend to follow American and European standards while deciding on size of implants in view of what the patient wants and what would suit her.
‘‘We recommend certain post-operative massage procedures,’’ said a surgeon. ‘‘We also tell them that it is safer to have the implants replaced after 10 years to avoid the risk of rupture.’’
Dr Santosh Rai Bhatkar, a plastic surgeon from Ahmedabad, said, ‘‘Informative TV programmes, on channels like Discovery, and the increasing desire among women to flaunt a well-shaped figure are responsible for the trend. Women were always aware of the possibilities; now, even husbands are getting convinced, and with the cheaper rates, there’s no holding back.’’
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=119550
