To have felt a bit judged over the last few weeks for having breast implants?

[RainbowSheep]

I have breast implants. I had them done when I was 24 as I had always had very small breasts (AA cup) and I wanted to feel more in proportion & fill certain tops properly. That was 8 years ago and I have never regretted having a breast augmentation.

I found out last week that I have PIP implants which are at the center of the French implant contoversy and I plan to get them replaced as I'm a bit worried.

The media coverage has brought up a lot of opinions on women, mainly along the lines of women who have implants are bimbo's who want to look like Jordan which in my experience simply isn't true.

AIBU to feel quite judged?

[RainbowSheep]

Can I just add my breasts are not huge, they are a C cup. Even if they were would that make me any 'less' of a woman?

[hackmum]

YANBU. There's this whole assumption that if you have breast implants you must be vain, whereas in fact it's pretty horrible to be small-breasted when you live in a society that seems to revere larger breasts. (Personally I think small is beautiful but clearly not everyone agrees!)

Horribly worrying for you though with all this implant stuff going on.

[AgentZigzag]

Just let it wash over you, nothing to do with anyone else what you do with your body.

Hope you'll be OK if you have those dodgy ones in, better to know so you can get them sorted though eh?

[ClutchingAtMyPearls]

Well. Sorry you're worried - really, that must be horrid but I'll never understand why women do this to themselves? Ultimately, I suppose, to please some man? And therefore YABU to have them. However you dress it up it is vanity.

[RainbowSheep]

I must say I think some women look gorgeous with small breasts, my DH prefers small breasts (we met after I'd had the op) but I love my own breasts as a C cup

[BastedTurkey]

Who cares what other people think? You did it for you and it made you feel better about yourself.

[RainbowSheep]

ClutchingAtMyPearls - I was single at the time and most men if not all I know prefer natural breasts

[GwendolineMaryLacedwithBrandy]

Totally up to you what you do with your body. I won't pretend to understand the motivation. I'm a G and would kill for AA's, I hate mine with a passion. But hey, your business not mine :)

[Northernlurker]

I don't judge people for having implants. I'm not impressed by people who have cosmetic procedures done privately with whatever cheap cowboy comes along with a nice ad and then get the almost inevitable screw up fixed by the NHS though.

[HugosGoatee]

YANBU at all!

Watching the news last night and a woman with implants was being interviewed about how she felt let down by the lack of info and research and that she had been badly advised. It turned into a moral questioning of why she'd had them done in the first place, and she was having to justify her decision, IMO totally irrelevant to the issue, which is one of safety regulations in private surgeries and rigour in standards.

But oh noo, it's about breasts so it's ok to quiz the woman about how desirable she feels regardless of relevance to the case

[Gigondas]

Am with northern lurker . Don't have a particular opinion of anyone who has implants as up to them but am a bit re Nhs fixing mess. Then again it's hard to draw line on what Nhs does fix- if you argue that shouldn't fix wrongs of a voluntary procedure /accident .

[HugosGoatee]

The subtext is 'well you shouldn't have had them, you deserve everything you get for being shallow'

If I pay to have dental work, highlights or a private birth, I expect rigorous standards of care and safety, regardless of my moral standing or motivation.

It's disgusting

I don't have implants or know anyone who does btw, but this has got my goat - tis a feminist issue IMO.

[RainbowSheep]

Northernlurker - I totally agree, I wouldn't expect the NHS to replace them for me, I had mine done outside of the UK so am paying privately to have them replaced. Surely if you had the procedure in the UK the company you used will be liable to replace/remove them? I think a lot of the procedures performed for masectomy patients were performed on the NHS so thereofr ethey should remove or replace them if they fitted the patients with faulty implants.

[HugosGoatee]

Gigondas and Northern - it's the fault of the private surgeries, not the women though and they don't deserve the public debate on the rights or wrongs of their decisions to have what they believed was safe, professional surgery.

[RainbowSheep]

Sorry that didn't read too well, I think that if a patient recieved faulty implants on the NHS then teh NHS are liable. If not, then women have every right to demand the company that performed the procedure replace or remove the faulty implants.

[BlissfulMistletoe]

I would love smaller breast at size f I would love for them to be a d cup.

I am on the lines if it make a women feel better about themselves, then really what harm is it

[CarefullyAirbrushedPotato]

I think it's probably unreasonable for people to judge those engaging in body modification if they're paying for it themselves and it does no harm to others.

I'm afraid my concern is in line with Gigondas, you can pay to have any part of yourself voluntarily mutilated augmented/adapted if you need or want to but I don't see why fixing problems arising from that procedure should be a priority for a stretched national health service.
I know it makes me sound like a harsh bitch, but there it is.

[Bunbaker]

"I'll never understand why women do this to themselves? Ultimately, I suppose, to please some man? And therefore YABU to have them. However you dress it up it is vanity."

OK, so what size are you? I bet you don't realise how disappointing it is to never find tops that fit properly because they are made for curvier women, or what it is like to have to wear a padded bra so that you don't look like a boy. I hate having small boobs, but would never have a boob job. I totally understand why women do though.

I agree with hackmum who has put it better than I could have done.

[toddlerama]

Absolutely agree rainbow. Whoever put in the dodgy ones should replace them. A surgical procedure should have had rigorous safety checks in place. The NHS shouldn't pick up the bill unless they put them in. In which case, they should. This idea that we get something for nothing with them is bizarre - we pay for it!

[DeePanCrisPandEeeven]

YANBU to feel judged. The judgers are BU. It's a complex area of expectations and self-image. And a tricky one to navigate through. No, the NHS isn't responsible for errors of others, BUT, if there is a chance of serious health implication then they do have a role to consider intervention, imo.

[nooka]

I can understand why you got implants OP, I expect it is quite hard to find clothes that fit nicely with a flat chest, and I can see that that might get you down, although it's not something I'd choose to do myself (I am an A cup post children myself). But I wonder in truth whether you are particularly representative. I suspect that many many women who have implants do not have breasts that 'should' cause them any issues that need addressing in such a drastic way. I wouldn't in general blame them for feeling the way they do though. I'd ask why they felt that way? I'd be blaming the cosmetic industry for selling the idea that bigger breasts = higher self esteem, and wondering if the Zoo/Nuts/Page 3 /porn culture we live in was making them feel inadequate too.

Someone once posted to a great site that had hundreds of pictures of ordinary breasts and it was depressing how many people were really quite miserable about the way they look.

[XmasFayreToMiddlin]

I have always been an AA cup and have many, many times thought about how nice it would be to have a fuller bust just so my clothes fitted better.

However, I tried some of those chicken fillet type bra stuffers and found I actually hated my new outline. It just wasn't me!! From then on I was much happier with my figure and, I have to say that at just shy of 50 years of age, I am now rather liking the fact my small boobs are more gravity-defying than bigger ones.

Having said that, I would never, ever judge somebody for having breast implants or breast reduction for that matter. It can really affect you psychologically if you are not happy with your body.

[ClutchingAtMyPearls]

bunbaker - since you ask my tits are an F cup and loll about like spaniel's ears. Happy now?

[nooka]

I think the only blame I might be consider is that people do talk quite often about getting cosmetic operations outside of the UK because it costs less and then seem a bit surprised when things go wrong. Often the reason for the cheaper op is that the quality standards are not very rigorous. I wonder if people just don't think through what they are doing, as just because something is cosmetic it doesn't mean that it couldn't have significant side effects (short and long term). But then I spent 14 years working in NHS quality assurance/risk management/complaints, so probably have a bit of a jaundiced view about health procedures.

OP, I hope that you are able to find someone good to have your implants removed. I would imagine that you will have to have new ones put in, but then my understanding is that they generally need replacing every 10 years or so because of encapsulation etc, so perhaps it's not that a big deal having them replaced a bit earlier.

[nooka]

Personally I love having smaller breasts as it means I don't have to wear a bra. Yes I'm not very curvy, but big breasts often lead to back problems later in life (I'd never realised how heavy breast tissue could be until I read a pathology report where someone had had a breast reduction to balance out their lumpectomy, and they had removed 1 kg of tissue).