Massaging after breast augmentation. Fact or fable?

Should or shouldn’t you massage your breasts after breast augmentation? ‘Doctor Google’ gives varying advice about breast massaging, but the only correct advice is that it is usually best to leave your breasts alone shortly after breast surgery.

Outdated advice

In the days when mostly water-filled prostheses were placed under the pectoral muscle, women did receive the advice to massage their breasts. Today, such prostheses have all but disappeared and just the opposite advice applies.

In fact, anatomical prostheses are used today. To keep these in place, the body must first have a chance to create a capsule around the prosthesis. With massage, the prosthesis can move or tilt. Therefore, massaging, as well as sports, dancing or horseback riding are not recommended in the first weeks after breast augmentation.

Repel or encapsulate

A prosthesis is a foreign body product. The body does not know it and has two choices: reject it or encapsulate it. Silicone, like titanium or gold, is an inert material to which the body does not react as strongly. Therefore, the body encapsulates it.