The common wish of my female patients who want to enlarge their breasts is not to have their implants set far apart, as a large gap between breasts might give implants away. So why don’t we get implants closer and eliminate that gap?

Implants make a dramatic difference in the look of the breasts. They tend to fill and reshape tissues, giving breasts desired size, shape and consistency. So why do we place implants about 4 centimeters away from each other?  Why do we leave the gap, when it is obvious that the majority of female patients want to have their breasts closer to each other in order to get a famous cleavage?

The answer can’t be really put into one sentence. First of all, we want implants that will last for years, not only for a year or two. It is a known fact that after a certain amount of time wrinkles start to appear on the breast, around the implants, i.e. well-known “rippling”. It is particularly common in very thin girls who chose implants of a bigger volume, because their implants are positioned directly under their skin. With the aim of preventing or at least postponing this phenomenon, we try to leave as much chest muscles as we can in the lower inner quadrant of the breast, so that we have one more layer of tissue covering the implant. Consequently, you will have slightly spaced implants, but the benefit is much higher.

The other reason is even more problematic. Silicone breast implants tend to move in their pockets. If they are positioned above the muscle or the muscle is completely cut off, it might happen that implants are touching each other. In that case we have an aesthetically bad condition called “symmastia”. Before polyurethane breast implants became available on the market, this complication had been treated in two procedures: by removing the implants and inserting the new ones in a reoperation (at least a six month pause has to be made between these two procedures), along with the use of the Internal Bra technique. All of these things weren’t particularly helpful and it was a nightmare for the girls to get through this. Now this problem is somewhat easily corrected with a large use of polyurethane breast implants, but this requires a surgeon with extensive experience in working with polyurethane implants.

Surely, we could further elaborate on this topic, but these are only the basic things. However, it is good to know all these things prior to making a decision on breast augmentation, especially before making a request for the smallest possible gap between implants.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me via email or Facebook.