The Brazilian butt lift (BBL) is an aesthetic procedure that comes with a terrifying statistic, a 1 in 3,000 death rate. Despite these risks, the BBL is an increasingly popular surgery. Harper’s Bazaar spoke with Dr. Devgan in order to obtain her professional opinion on the surgery.
The article starts by explaining that a BBL is a procedure that takes liposuctioned fat from other areas of the body and then re-injects into the buttocks and hips. The surgery will require medical clearance in order to assess patient health and surgical complication risk factors. BBL recovery takes up to several months and the results can vary since the fat can change shape over time.
The danger in BBLs was discovered when “a plastic surgery task force reported that three percent of plastic surgeons who performed the procedure had a patient die." Last August, it was reported that BBLs have the highest death rate of any aesthetic procedure.” Dr. Devgan states that “This is a level of risk that is extremely alarming and totally unacceptable for an elective cosmetic procedure. That risk of death is a statistic that factors in the outcomes of highly trained American board-certified plastic surgeons, so this is not just an issue of who is doing the surgery, it is a risk inherent to the operation.” A non-surgical alternative to a BBL is Sculptra injections, which are poly-L-lactic acids injections that boost natural collagen production. This nonsurgical option can be cost prohibitive because many injections are required to obtain desired results. Nonetheless, there are many factors to consider when choosing to underog elective cosmetic procedures. For these reasons, it is important to always perform extensive research when considering any procedures.
