The fashion is all the rage in the United States but it arouses the concern of doctors. After the face, breasts, stomach, hips and buttocks, cosmetic surgery conquers new territories of the human body: the genitals.
To make them stylish or discreet, teenage girls are increasingly resorting to operations on the labia minora. They were 400 to have undergone a labiaplasty in 2015, an increase of 80% compared to the previous year, underlines an article of the Point specifying that young girls represent 2% of patients in cosmetic surgery but nearly 5% for this type of intervention.
To bring down the fever of the “perfect vagina” and warn of the dangers of this operation, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has just published guidelines for its members. Doctors are invited to identify psychiatric disorders that could lead teenagers to this type of request.
Some may suffer from dysmorphophobia, that is to say an obsession with wanting to correct real or supposed bodily imperfections.
Specialists should also remember that this surgery involves risks. “The labia have a lot of nerve endings, so after the procedure there may be a decrease in sexual sensations or insensitivity, pain, scarring,” Dr. Julie Strickland, a member of this group, told the New York Times. American College.
Others point out that labiaplasty must respond to a medical request, such as lips that are too large and embarrassing in everyday life.
But the battle promises to be tough. In the United States, nearly two million cosmetic procedures were performed in 2015 with buttock surgery every 30 minutes!
First publication: May 04, 2016
