You’ve tried every trick in the book — push-up bras, silicone pads, even contouring makeup — but there’s no getting around it: you’re not happy with the size of your breasts. They don’t fill out clothing the way you want. They’re disproportionately small compared to the rest of your body. Their size makes you self-conscious with intimate partners. No matter what you do to make your breasts appear larger in daily life, what you really want is to boost your breast size permanently.
Breast augmentation surgery is the obvious answer, but it also seems complicated. A Google search for ways to increase breast size without surgery returns some results, and it’s easy to think that at-home solutions are a good way to start. However, you may be playing a dangerous game: at best, you’ll end up with stronger pectoral muscles and not much else, and at worst, you could do serious harm to your health with dietary restrictions or untested supplements. In this post, we’ve gathered expert plastic surgeon Dr. Kahlil Andrews’ take on some of these do-it-yourself solutions to breast enhancement.
Exercise Your Way to Bigger Breasts
Some sources claim that working out your pectoral muscles will make your breasts larger. This advice isn’t completely off-course — your pectoral muscles are positioned below your breast tissue, and building muscle mass in the area would theoretically add volume to your chest.
However, there are two considerable problems with enlarging your breasts this way. First, it takes more than a few push-ups and presses to make a significant difference in the size of your pecs. You would need to spend many hours at the gym with specialized workouts and equipment before you saw a change in your appearance. And second, adding muscle mass is not the same as enlarging your breasts. The type of tissue you would be adding to your body would not create a soft, supple, round and projected look; instead, it would feel like toughened muscle and would appear broader and flatter across the chest wall.
Eat These Foods to Increase Breast Size
Dietary advice for breast enhancement typically relies on the link between hormones and breast size. In particular, female sex hormones like estrogen are a known factor in determining breast volume. Some natural health and wellness blogs look for studies showing that a certain type of food or ingredient can boost estrogen levels, and use that evidence to suggest dietary changes to make your breasts larger.
There are a few holes in this logic. First, estrogen is mainly linked to breast size during breast development. Higher estrogen levels are unlikely to make any lasting difference in the size of fully developed breasts. Second, few to none of these ingredients have been definitively linked to consistent estrogen regulation or breast size. Many of the studies cited by this type of article are short-term, are performed on a small sample size or produced anomalous results. And third, there is little evidence to suggest that absorbing estrogen-boosting nutrients through digestion of food is an effective way to influence hormone levels.
From the point of view of a licensed healthcare provider, this type of advice is misleading and potentially harmful. It’s important for a number of reasons to follow a healthy, balanced diet, and changing your eating habits in the hopes of bigger breasts could affect your body in unpredictable ways. What’s more, altering your estrogen levels — even through “natural” means — can have unwanted effects ranging from acne to painful periods to interference with hormonal birth control.
Supplements and Creams for A Better Bust
Advertisements for breast-enhancing products are not uncommon across the Internet, in magazines or on social media. Vitamin-like pills and topical creams or gels that claim to contain a “miracle ingredient” for bigger breasts are tempting, especially when backed by an influencer or celebrity. These products are often similar in principle to dietary advice, operating on the idea that particular substances will interact with the body in a way that causes breast tissue to grow larger.
But this segment of the natural breast enhancement market is perhaps more sinister than food-based tactics. These products often purport to be backed by clinical studies, healthcare professionals or other scientific evidence. In truth, they are part of a largely unregulated beauty market and are not legitimate health products. The lack of close monitoring by a government organization like the FDA means that they could contain a host of ingredients from unknown sources. This could be as simple as a cheap moisturizer marketed as breast enhancement cream, or it could be that the supplement you’re taking contains questionable ingredients like talc, artificial coloring or potentially harmful chemicals. It’s best to avoid these products at all costs.
Pump Up Your Breast Size
The breast enlargement pump is a suction-based device that attaches to the breasts. It claims to stimulate tissue expansion by pulling more blood into the vessels in the breast area, thereby increasing fluid volume and making the breasts appear larger. These products often stipulate that it takes a serious time commitment to get results — sometimes as much as wearing the pump for 10 hours per day for several weeks.
Even if you are able to follow the pump instructions and wear it consistently for the right amount of time, there is no medical evidence suggesting that they work. Suction may temporarily enlarge the area, but it may also cause redness, visible bruising, breast pain or other problematic side effects that are likely not worth the effort. Much like supplements and creams, breast enlargement pumps are not regulated or condoned by the FDA or any other government body, and are not considered a legitimate method of breast enhancement by healthcare or medical aesthetics professionals.
Using Your Own Fat to Enlarge Your Breasts
Many people are interested in what is considered cutting-edge in the plastic surgery world: fat grafting. This does require a surgical procedure, but it may be considered a “natural” way to produce a larger volume in the breasts. Simply put, your own fat is removed from areas of excess through liposuction, processed in a sterile fashion, and re-injected into the subcutaneous layer of the breasts.
Fat grafting is used often in patients who are having breast reconstruction, and it can also be used in patients who are seeking to increase the size of their breasts without the use of an implant. The drawback to using fat grafting is that its viability may be unpredictable in large volume administration.
What this means is that you may need to have more than one procedure to get the desired results. In addition to being a “natural” procedure, additional benefits include a shorter recovery period and very small puncture sites—no incisions—and there are also rejuvenating benefits from the stem cells found in fat.
What Are the Benefits of Fat Grafting?
Well, there are quite a few. One of the most substantial benefits is that you get to tackle two birds with one stone. You can increase the size of your breasts while simultaneously slimming down and contouring a different section of your body that you would prefer to have a little less fat around. The results of this are more than the sum of their parts — contouring in this way often produces results that patients refer to as exponentially better.
In addition, since fat grafting uses your own bodily material, there is no chance of rejection. In some cases, the body may reject the foreign body of an implant, but you get to avoid that risk entirely with fat transfer.
Lastly, fat grafting tends to produce much more natural results that both look and feel more like the original. Women who are not looking for an overly large aesthetic often go with fat grafting for this reason alone.
However, you should always remember that just like fat anywhere else on your body, it can disappear if you experience weight loss. This is why we always recommend that people undergoing this procedure are near their target weight. Otherwise, they could find that their body chooses to use up fat in the breast before any other fat in the body, reversing the results of the procedure.
How Is the Recovery?
The recovery is similar to a typical breast augmentation with implants. You will spend the same amount of time in recovery, but you will also have to consider the additional healing that will need to take place at the fat extraction site. Liposuction is a minimally invasive procedure, though, so you will not need to worry about it too much.
Learn More: Fat Grafting For Breast Augmentation
As you consider your options for breast enlargement, we strongly encourage you to consult with a board-certified plastic surgeon to learn more about breast augmentation surgery. We recommend this not because we are a plastic surgery practice marketing our own procedures, but because we prioritize patient safety and satisfaction.
Infographic: Understanding the Benefits of Breast Augmentation with Fat Grafting
Dr. Kahlil Andrews provides cosmetic breast surgeries including breast augmentation in the Coralville and Cedar Rapids, Iowa area. He is an expert in breast augmentation surgery and consistently helps his clients achieve their ideal breast size without complications. He focuses on creating beautiful, natural results that look and feel like the breasts you have always wanted. Book your consultation today by calling us at (319) 382-8230 or reaching out online.
