Breast Lifts: What You Need To Know

Breast lift surgery is a very common procedure for the breasts.  But what is a breast lift and when would someone need one???  With time, gravity, or breast feeding, the breasts have a tendency to drop/droop.  Some may notice that the nipple starts to point down to the ground instead of pointing forward.  This is mostly a skin issue.  Which means… that the skin to the breasts have stretched and are allowing the breast to hang too low.  This may also happen after significant weight loss or breastfeeding, in which you might loose volume to the breasts and now there is “too much” skin left.  Depending on how much excess skin needs to be removed and tightened, depends on the types and amounts of incisions that need to be placed to the breasts.

There are three most common incision patterns that are used for breast lifts:  periareolar incision (an incision around the nipple areolar complex for minor lifts), periareolar incision with a vertical incision (aka the “lollipop” incision because the incision travels around the areola and then travels vertically down the lower underside of the breast towards the breast fold; for more skin removal and tightening), and finally the Weiss pattern or “anchor” incision (which looks like the anchor of a ship, which has the same pattern of the lollipop lift with an extension of the incision line that travels in a crescent shape in the under fold of the breast; for the most skin tightening).  Depending on how much skin laxity or how much of a lift you might need, depends on which incision pattern you surgeon may suggest.  There are cases that a patient may need a lift and also want more volume to their breasts and in these cases, a lift can be paired with an augmentation to give more breast volume and tighten the skin at the same time.  We will talk about that scenario in a future blog.