Breast fat transfer is a 100% natural way to increase cup size while slimming another body part, such as the tummy. However, there are limitations to what breast fat transfer, also called breast fat grafting, can do for you.
Keep reading to find out who is a good candidate for breast fat transfer, how big it can make your breasts, and the differences between breast fat transfer vs breast implants. When you’re done reading, you’ll be able to make a confident decision about the best way to increase bust size for you as an individual.
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Breast Fat Injections FAQ
Doctor Bernard is a breast fat transfer surgeon in Australia that caters to post-pregnancy and post-weight loss patients. In this article, he answers all your questions about breast fat grafting. This exciting procedure is a great way to increase bust size naturally while removing excess body fat in one surgery.
What is fat grafting?
Fat grafting is a cosmetic surgery that removes fat from one body part using liposuction, then transfers the fat to an area you wish to enhance. The most popular fat grafting technique is using belly fat to make breast bigger naturally. The belly fat is cleaned, purified, then injected into the breasts. Fat can be harvested from other body parts as well.
Can you use someone else’s fat for breast fat injections?
No — and there’s a good reason why. Many patients want to know if they can use someone else’s fat for fat transfer surgery. After all, we all know someone with extra fat that would be happy to give it away! Using a friend or family member’s fat is tempting. Why should all that fat go to waste? They don’t even want it.
So, why can’t we put that fat to good use? The reason is simple. It’s not safe. It’s not possible to transfer fat from one person to another because there is a good chance the body will reject it. It could cause health problems. The body’s immune system is designed to detect and fight off foreign objects that enter the body. That includes fat cells that are foreign to the host.
While it may be possible to transfer fat from one person to another in the future, as of today, there is no safe way to do it. In order to see if a medical procedure is safe, there must be extensive medical research and studies to evaluate safety. Since the procedure is risky, no good medical studies have been done yet. As of today, it’s just not an option.
Excess body fat is a common problem among men and women. Therefore, most people have enough body fat of their own to enhance other areas of their body.
Can you transfer fat to the buttocks, too?
Buttocks fat transfer is possible, but Doctor Bernard does not offer it. No, it’s not because he doesn’t think women should have a large bum if they desire it. For him, it is a matter of patient safety.
The Brazilian Butt Lift has grown in popularity worldwide. Curvy bodies are making a major comeback. Many qualified plastic surgeons offer buttocks fat transfer. However, it is much more risky than your average cosmetic surgery — for example, a breast augmentation or breast fat transfer.
For Doctor Bernard, the high death risk of Brazilian Butt Lifts is not worth the reward. The butt lift mortality rate is 1 in 3,000 patients. That number is unheard of compared to other forms of cosmetic surgery.
In addition to a high risk of death from butt lift surgery, another factor is that the death is immediate. Often, Brazilian butt lift patients die from a fat embolus. This causes death in just a few hours. There is little a surgeon can do to save the patient.
Doctor Bernard could not imagine a situation in which this happened. Patient safety is his #1 priority. He treats a lot of mothers with families and young women with their whole lives ahead of them. A bigger bum just isn’t worth it, in his medical opinion. Breast fat transfer, on the other hand, is very safe.
Do you have to get fat transfer at the same time is liposuction, or can you save the fat for later?
Wouldn’t it be great to remove unwanted body fat today, then save it for future use? It sounds great in theory, but it is not currently possible. Fat is a living tissue. It won’t survive long outside of the body. The fat that is removed with liposuction must be transferred to enhance another body part within two hours of harvesting. You cannot save the fat from liposuction to enhance body parts later in life.
Is breast fat transfer safe?
While all forms of surgery carry risks, breast fat transfer is considered a safe procedure. While the technique is new to Australia, places like the U.S. and Europe have been doing breast fat injections for many years. The risk of death from breast fat transfer is low. Additionally, it does not appear to interfere with breast cancer screenings.
Fat injections are successfully used for post-mastectomy patients as well. For patients that have deformed breasts after breast cancer surgery, fat injections are commonly used to improve the appearance of that area. Mastectomy patients also may use breast implants. However, after a cancer scare, it is no surprise that these women prefer a 100% natural breast implant alternative, such as breast fat injections, instead of implants.
Can breast fat transfer cause breast nodules?
What happens if a patient develops a breast nodule after breast fat injections? Are the fat injections to blame? Again, there’s no suggestion in the literature that breast fat injections are dangerous. To give his patients peace of mind, Doctor Bernard has each breast fat transfer patient go in for an MRI, breast ultrasound, and mammogram before getting breast fat injections.
Current research shows that breast fat transfer doesn’t make it harder to detect breast cancer. To be on the safe side, Doctor Bernard has imaging done prior to the breast fat transfer procedure. That way, if a patient has breast cancer, they know about it before having cosmetic surgery. If the patient moves forward with breast fat transfer, they will know for a fact that it wasn’t their decision to get breast fat transfer that caused it.
And if, for some reason, there is an abnormality or a little nodule after breast fat injection, then you can compare the old photos with the new photos. That makes investigating the medical cause easier.
The downside is breast imaging costs money. Younger patients in their 20s and 30s are unlikely to have breast imaging covered by insurance. In Doctor Bernard’s experience, the peace of mind is well worth the cost.
What are the limitations of breast fat injections?
Breast fat injections are a 100% natural alternative to breast implant surgery. Yet there is a downside. Implants can make the breasts significantly larger. The shape and size is very reliable. With an implant, you know exactly what you are getting. Meanwhile, breast fat injections can only enhance the breast so much.
It’s a proportional increase. The larger the breast and the looser the breast skin, the better the breast fat transfer works. With fat injections, an A cup patient cannot become a C cup. They will only get a small increase in bust size. A women with C cup breasts that are empty will be able to go up about one cup size. D cup breasts may increase about 1.5 cup sizes if the skin is lax.
The bottom line: For flat-chested women, breast implants are a better choice.
How big can breast fat injections make my breasts?
It’s all based on the current breast volume a patient has. Breast fat injections can increase bust size naturally by about 30-40%, Doctor Bernard estimates. The reason it can’t provide a bigger breast enhancement is tension.
A flat chest with tight skin does not have enough room inside the breast for the fat to survive. The new fat will be constricted. The fat tissue needs space around it so that it can receive nourishment from the blood supply to stay alive. Without nutrients, the fat cells die. So tight skin and small breasts, particularly on younger women that have not yet had children, won’t have a good result. A lot of the transferred fat dies and gets expelled by the body. The breasts won’t look much bigger.
On the other hand, women with looser breast skin and more fat in the breasts tend to have more room inside the breast pocket for the fat to survive. Breast fat transfer is best for women with moderate to large cup sizes and lax breast skin.
Who is a good candidate for breast fat transfer?
The best candidate for breast fat injections are women that have been pregnant or lost weight in the past. They tend to have empty breasts. Patients with loose breasts often have a reasonable amount of breast tissue to begin with. Even a B cup with a lot of emptiness after pregnancy or breastfeeding has enough room to add some fat with breast fat transfer. Because the skin is looser, the new fat cells have room to survive. The same goes for women with empty C cup or D cup breasts. These are the best candidates for fat injections.
Is a tummy tuck with breast fat transfer a good idea?
This is a very popular option. Doctor Bernard performs a lot of tummy tucks with breast fat transfer because it’s ideal for patients with loose skin and tissue. After pregnancy or weight loss, patients often have loose skin on the tummy. A tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) is a loose skin removal surgery that creates a flat tummy.
A tummy tuck with liposuction removes abdominal fat as well. That fat can be harvested for breast fat injections. Since tummy tuck patients often have loose skin and empty breasts, they are the ideal candidate for breast fat transfer. For women seeking a natural alternative to a tummy tuck with breast implants, it’s a great option.
Benefits of the Lipo-abdominoplasty with breast fat transfer
A tummy tuck with lipo is great for removing loose skin and fat on the tummy, flanks, love handles, and more. Removing fat with lipo means the fat can either be discarded, or it may be harvested for breast fat injections.
Breast fat injections restore fullness to empty breasts after pregnancy, breastfeeding, or weight loss. The fat is removed from the tummy and it is then used to enhance the breasts. Breast fat transfer may also correct uneven breasts (breast asymmetry) at the same time as excess abdominal skin removal.
Dr. Bernard Beldholm’s Lipo-abdominoplasty with fat injections into the breast has many benefits.
It removes sagging abdominal skin, excess belly fat, repairs separated ab muscles, and provides permanent breast augmentation with fat grafting in one procedure. A combined procedure reduces out-of-pocket surgery costs, time spent in the operating room, and lowers risks compared to having two or more separate procedures. Patients also enjoy less downtime, with only one recovery period instead of two.
For new mums and post-weight loss patients, a tummy tuck with fat grafting is an excellent choice.
Breast implants vs breast fat transfer
Breast implants give a predictable result. It’s the most popular breast enhancement surgery for a reason. But some patients are concerned about getting breast implants for safety reasons. Breast implants are very safe, but there is always a small risk because it is a foreign object. The immune system might respond in an unusual way.
In rare cases, breast implants are linked to breast implant-related illness. Thankfully, this is extremely uncommon. Nevertheless, some patients refuse to put a foreign object in their body. Breast fat injections are a 100% natural way to get bigger breasts.
Another con of breast implants is that they are not permanent. Breast implants last about 10 years on average before they need to be replaced. Breast fat transfer, on the flip side, is permanent. It is living tissue, so the fat cells that survive a few months after the breast fat transfer surgery will stay living forever.
That is, unless a patient loses weight. If you plan to lose weight in the future, breast implants are a better choice. They will stay the same size no matter how much weight you lose.
Is breast fat transfer safer than implants?
Technically, yes. While both are extremely safe, breast implant can shift or become displaced, capsular contracture may occur, and there is a small concern about breast implant-associated illness. With breast fat injections, patients do not have to worry about any of these issues.
