Fat grafting to the breast is a way to kill two birds with one stone in surgery. A lot of people are interested in having larger breasts, not necessarily with implants and a lot of women have a little stubborn area of fat somewhere in the body, whether it's the hips or the thighs. We can put this together. A gentle form of liposuction can be done, gentle so that the fat cells aren't disrupted. This fat can then be processed very carefully, washed, and purified and then carefully re-injected into the breast to provide a very natural augmentation. It's not for women who want more than a cup or two increase in size. For women who aren't happy with, say a petty bra, and want maybe half a cup, at most a cup, this can be a very nice, natural way to get breast augmentation. Fat has to be handled very carefully. Fat cells are incredibly sensitive. Ideally all the fat that you put there would stay, but that's not necessarily always the case. The most important thing is how that fat is removed, processed, and then again purified. You wouldn't want to inject a bunch of broken cells or blood that would not really lead to an ideal result so purified fat is the best take. Then, even with that, a lot of the cells are very sensitive. Maybe 75% at most survive that transfer process. Once it's there, it stays forever. What does happen is women wake up from surgery. They've got the swelling and all of the fat and they're maybe a cup size, two cup sizes bigger, and they're very happy.

The swelling goes down and a certain number of fat cells don't survive the transfer process so about three months after the surgery, you get closer to the final results. Once you've gotten there, all that fat that's made it that far will last forever. With fat grafting, to remove the fat, it's done like liposuction. Small poke holes are made and small cannulas are put in and we do it the same way that liposuction is done. Then, to re-inject that fat, a very, very small cannula is also placed, a little hollow bore tube like a needle, through a little poke hole, is injected. What's very important is that fat isn't injected as one big blob because it won't survive but that it's very carefully laid out, little droplets throughout the tissue. Common complications from fat grafting, if liposuction is overdone, it can lead to indentations, waviness, sometimes worsening of cellulite. We have to use very careful techniques. The same way that we would be doing cosmetic liposuction is the same way we would want to remove the fat. Other things that can happen, if the fat is not injected properly or too much all in one area, that fat may form cysts or a very hard nutshell that we call fat necrosis. These things aren't dangerous. They're not going to cause cancer or other diseases, but sometimes a woman may get a mammogram and it may show up as something that may need to be biopsied. We have to be very careful to purify that fat and inject it very carefully so that these things are minimized.

"Kill Two Birds With One Stone" With Fat Transfer to the Breast

Transferring fat to the breast can slim the area where it's being harvested and provide a nice boost to the bust all in one procedure. But Dr. Kamakshi Zeidler does have a few words for the wise when it comes to this seemingly perfect procedure.