My answer to this question is “No”, but it is possible.

Having done Louisville breast augmentations for many years, and having placed thousands of implants, I have seen only one woman who returned with stretch marks after an augmentation.

Stretch marks represent a tear of the deep surface of the skin and the tear heals by making scar. So a stretch mark is a scar. The amount of stretch we put on the breast skin is typically not great enough to create stretch marks. Also, the skin of the breast is typically very mobile, much more so that the skin of the hips or tummy where stretch marks typically occur. This laxity and mobility serve to protect against the problem.

If you look in the product literature from the implant manufacturers, stretch marks are not even mentioned in the list of potential complications.

An offshoot of this question is “Will implants make stretch marks worse?”. My experience is that they don’t go away but they tend to be less noticable after an augmentation.

Lee Corbett, MD

www.CorbettCosmeticSurgery.com

502.721.0330