"Two tube socks with a roll of quarters in the bottom." That's how Kelly, a mother of a 3-year-old and a 7-month-old in Gloucester, Massachusetts, describes the body parts formerly known as her breasts. Lisa, a mother of two in California's San Fernando Valley, declares that after nursing for two years, "I literally had nothing left in my breasts except skin." Having kids changes parts of your life and, very frequently, parts of your body. If you were a big fan of skimpy tops and perfect (and perfectly tight) white T-shirts prior to delivery, your breasts may be among the body parts you mourn most.
War stories like Kelly's and Lisa's have led many moms to count themselves among the women who underwent the 384,000 breast-augmentation procedures in the U.S. last year. Although Kelly hasn't gone that route (and doesn't intend to), Lisa has. And while there are no specific statistics that single out mothers from the general implant-receiving population, it's clear that Lisa has lots of company. Indeed, there's quite a bit of cleavage between the cliché of a boob-job chooser and the actual one: "The stereotypical image of a woman who gets breast implants is a single woman in her early 20s who is looking to increase her breast size to attract a romantic partner," says clinical psychologist David Sarwer, Ph.D., who specializes in body-image issues at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "In contrast, many studies show that it's really a woman in her late 20s or early 30s. She's married and has children, and her primary motivation is to restore her breast size and shape to what they were before she had kids." Perhaps to that end, then, breast augmentation now ranks ahead of nose jobs on the list of the most popular forms of cosmetic surgery, according to the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS). And last November, the FDA lifted its 14-year restriction on silicone implants, which look and feel more realistic than their saline counterparts.
"The overwhelming majority of implants I do are on women around 40 years old who have just finished having their children," says Michael Kane, M.D., a surgeon in New York City. "They typically don't want to be very big—they just want to get rid of the droopiness."
They may not be on the hunt for a husband or a life partner, but some moms, like Lisa, pine for a return to their curvier, sexier "premom" selves. "I didn't feel like me," she says of her post-breast-feeding deflation. "I felt like a part of my body was gone. And I didn't want to worry about it anymore."
Lisa's husband, who was privy to her loss of confidence, was on board with her plan to do something (surgical) about it. "He knew it had affected my self-esteem," she says. "I wanted my sex appeal back, and he understood that."
Plenty of mothers have wanted a better bosom for years—even decades—and finally get it once they're finished having kids. Stella, a stay-at-home mother of a 6-year-old and 3-year-old twins in Chandler, Arizona, started considering the surgery when she was about 25, then more seriously at 36, after she'd lost the 50 pounds she had gained during her pregnancies. "After Sophie was born, I started running at least 25 miles a week, and my body changed. I got much leaner and flatter," she says. Now 42, she says she's happy with her decision to get saline implants.
Reclaiming her old wardrobe was the motivation for Heather, 44, of Ventura County, California, a mom of two boys who jumped two whole cup sizes (from 34B to 36D). But even mild deflation can set the mental wheels in motion: Alison, a Sherman Oaks, California, mother of three, says she's considering getting an implant boost from a small C to a full C. "I've always wanted perkier boobs," she says, "but I don't want to be a lot bigger."
It's tempting to blame breast-feeding for the sagging and the overall loss of vavoom—but it usually doesn't have a dramatic effect unless you've nursed for longer than six months, or more than one child. In fact, pregnancy itself is more likely to cause the breasts' physical changes, says Sharon Mass, M.D., an obstetrician in Morristown, New Jersey, who is a representative for the United States Breast-Feeding Committee. "In most cases, a woman will experience an approximate doubling in [breast] weight and an increase in blood flow, and sometimes an increase in areola size, during pregnancy." Those changes, Mass says, can result in postpartum sagging and loss of fullness. But much also depends on the individual woman, stresses Haideh Hirmand, M.D., a professor of plastic surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell, in New York City. "Weight gain and loss, age, engorgement—these all have effects on the breasts and can make them sag," she says.
Next Page: Weighing the risks of breast augmentation
