Breast Lift St. Louis

Dr. Michele Koo, MD, FACS, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon, St Louis, Missouri, specializes in creating the most beautiful, pleasing breasts to fit your height and weight. As women's breasts begin to sag with age or childbirth, weight gain and loss, and begin to lose their shape, fullness, and position on the chest. Dr. Koo lifts the nipple back to its appropriate position on the chest, while simultaneously reshaping the breasts to create youthful, lifted breasts. Based on her years of experience with cosmetic breast surgery, Dr. Koo will help you decide if you need a breast implant to create full, sexy breasts or if you need only a breast lift (mastopexy) to remove the excess skin and reposition the nipple.

Dr. Michele Koo specializes in recreating the breasts to a natural, full, youthful shape that is in harmony with the rest of your body and consistent with your cosmetic desires.

About The Breast Lift Procedure

A breast lift, or mastopexy, is performed to return youthful shape and lift to breasts that have sagged as a result of weight loss, pregnancy, loss of the skin's natural elasticity or simply the effects of gravity. The procedure can also reduce areolar size (the dark skin surrounding the nipple), and it can be combined with mammoplasty (breast augmentation) for added breast volume and firmness. The best breast lift procedure for you will be determined during your consultation with Dr. Michele Koo. Breasts of any size can be lifted, but results last longest when they are originally small and sagging.

Dr. Koo advises women planning to have children to postpone surgery, since pregnancy and nursing can counteract its effects by stretching the skin. However, mastopexy should not affect your ability to breast-feed.

Mastopexy may be performed in a hospital, an outpatient surgery center or Dr. Koo's office-based facility. It is usually done on an outpatient basis under general anesthesia, and lasts from 1-½ to 3-½ hours.

A number of pre-operative steps are typically taken such as a mammogram, measurement of the bustline, and discussion with Dr. Koo about the desired size and shape of the breast and placement of the nipple. During the procedure an anchor-shaped incision is made from the location of the new nipple down to and around the crease beneath the breast. Dr. Koo removes excess skin, relocates the nipple and areola, and reshapes the breast using skin from around the areola before closing the incisions with stitches.

Patients with small breasts and minimal sagging may be recommended for smaller-incision mastopexy. One such modified procedure is concentric ("doughnut") mastopexy, in which two concentric circular incisions are made around the areola and a doughnut-shaped swathe of skin is removed.

After surgery the breasts are wrapped with gauze dressings, over which an elastic bandage or a surgical bra is placed. After a few days this is replaced with a soft support bra which is worn 24 hours a day for about a month. Breasts will probably be bruised, swollen, and uncomfortable for a few days but this will pass. Numbness in the breasts and nipples should lessen as swelling subsides, although occasionally it lasts for months or even permanently. Stitches are removed after one to two weeks, and many patients return to work then.

Complications are uncommon but may include bleeding, infection, numbness, uneven positioning of nipples and widenening of scars. Scars can be covered even beneath bathing suits and low-cut tops.

For more information about Breast Lift, please click here
View before-and-after photos of Dr. Koo's patients who have undergone breast lift
For additional information on Breast Lift visit: plasticsurgery.org

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