Overnight Hospital Stay After Breast Augmentation

It is unusual for breast augmentation patient to spend the night in the hospital. Nevertheless if your surgeon feels this is in your best interests then you should listen to him.

The choice of aesthetic for breast augmentation will vary between surgeons, as will their desire for you to stay overnight.

I suspect that the choice to stay overnight is a surgical preference and is not necessarily related to the anaesthetic as either anaesthetic can be used for day surgery procedures.

The choice to stay overnight is more related to patient comfort and patient and surgeon preference that anaesthetic type

 

Jeremy Hunt 

 

I can't imagine a reason for keeping a patient overnight following breast augmentation surgery unless you have some medical issue that needs to be followed overnight.  I have been in practice for 23 years and never kept a breast augmentation patient overnight in a hospital.

Thank you for your question.  I do all my breast augmentations under general anesthesia.  Usually it takes about an hour.  In 14 years of practice, I have never had anyone stay over night at a hospital.

It is exceedingly rare in my practice for a breast augmentation patient to require an overnight stay.  All the breast augmentation patients receive general anesthesia.

Dr. ES

    In most cases of breast augmentation, an overnight stay at a hospital represents an unnecessary additional expense.  Kenneth Hughes, MD Los Angeles, CA

Hi and thanks for the question. The most important thing is being comfortable with your surgeon and the plan. I use both tiva and GA. It doesn't make a huge difference, however I do both. Its important that if you have daycase ie TIVA then stay nearby the first night in case you develop a haematoma that whilst rare, generally happens within the first 24hrs.

i have never had a patient stay overnight in the hospital or surgery center after breast augmentation. as a matter of fact i encourage that they are doing a lot of normal activities after surgery

It is unusual for a plastic surgeon to keep a patient overnight after breast augmentation in the United States, although I have heard of this in other countries.  I have performed over 5000 breast augmentations and have never kept a patient overnight.

 

Both options of being kept in the hospital or being discharged home after a breast augmentation are reasonable and acceptable. No matter whether you have intravenous anesthesia or general anesthesia, it should be administered by an appropriate anesthesia provider in a licensed or accredited office surgical facility, free standing ambulatory surgical center, or hospital.

 

The recommendations for aftercare should depend on your medical history, social situation at home including whether you have a reliable adult to take care of you for the first night or two after surgery, and your individual level of anxiety about the aftercare. Safety should always be the main concern, but there is no valid data that shows that staying overnight in the hospital is safer. Most patients in the United States are not admitted to the hospital following a breast augmentation.

 

Robert Singer, MD  FACS

La Jolla, California