Breast augmentation Korea issues 

There was a news from SBS stating that the silicone from a collapsed implant flew into a baby’s mouth while the mother was breastfeeding her baby.
There are many of those who are concerned and curious about this when planning on breast augmentation.



Journalism is always different from science. “Accusing the fact” is journalism and this is also its role, but there is no science to it. There is no one scientific sentence that catches your attention. One needs to see many numbers and contemplate on it to get a step closer to the scientific truth. So, I get discomforts whenever I see such news article.

There are many feeds on naver under this article. “You should have removed the silicone before giving birth.” “How can you feed your child a silicone?” “All of you should be careful if you had breast augmentation.. this is awful.” “Why do something on your body, when you should not do anything on it.” About 80% of the contents were about criticizing the mother.’

The reason why I talk about the scientific truth is because, if you know the reality, then you cannot criticize the mother.


There are many aged, old male users who criticized the mother on the internet and these users are writing some cruel words to the victim.

It is like when I am driving my car to work, I stop at the light for a min or so. A truck driven by someone who is really sleepy crashes into the back of my car and I get hurt. People them criticize me by saying “why not take public transportation to work and get your body spoilt?” This is very absurd.

I am sure that the reporter did not want something like this to be the outcome. But the result turned away as such because the article was focused on the implant, not the doctor or the hospital where the surgery took place.



One of the most common surgeries held around the world today is the breast augmentation. A lot of breast augmentations are done in US, Europe and in South America. There has never been a case or a journal or a content in a textbook that describes on the silicone gel from the implant leaking into the baby through breast feeding. This is the very first case in the world.

Then one must talk about the surgeon and the hospital. But the article only concentrates on the implant and this somehow leads to the criticizing of the mother. This is sad.
When the reporter writes such an article, he/she wants to attract the attention of the readers. There has always been some activity that involves putting in a substance into the body in medical history. If a patient got a surgery that led to complications, such simple article would not be attractive enough. But if it involves something that is real common such as the implant, people would be talking about the problems that arise and this story would be big in the news.

Let’s look at the new again. If the substances in the implant are to go into the baby’s mouth, there are 3 certain conditions related to it.

1. The implant shell must be damaged
2. The silicones must leak outside the capsule
3. Silicone must dissolve into the liquid in the breast

Condition 1 is likely to happen. The statistics from Chosun Ilbo (3600 complication, 66% damaged within 4 years) is not accurate so it is not this common.

In order for condition 2 to happen, the implant must be damaged before the capsule is formed. It takes about 2~3 weeks for the capsule to be formed on a normal person, therefore it is highly unlikely that the damaged implant has been used during the surgery.
The implant gets damaged due to the purpose act of the inexperienced surgeon who wants to put in the implant no matter what.

The silicone from the damage implant disperses everywhere in order for it to penetrate into the liquid in the breast. The silicone cannot penetrate once the capsule is formed.

There is an another problem. Silicone gel is a combination of large molecules. Each one of the molecule that form the silicone is large. If this is to penetrate and leak from the breast, the substance must enter the cell. Not just one or two cells but a lot of the cells in order to see the light.

This is impossible if you study the cell biology.
In 1993, FDA opened a commission to study what influence the silicone from the implant has on the body (cancer, metabolism, etc). The commission warned the manufacturers to stop the sales and required clinical datas. (This has been stopped since 2006)



In 1999, well know scholars of biology and medication/toxin gathered to publish a journal named “Safety of silicone breast implants”. We can conclude that this book proves the safety of silicone implants.  

(The value of this book is that the authors are not plastic surgery specialists. Those who do not have any interest in selling breast implants have gathered to publish this book therefore the contents are more reliable.)



"It is difficult for silicone to directly disperse into the breast cells. There is no such happening on the women who breast feeds as well.." This is stated in pg 11 of this book. But, the first case came out in our country.

In 1996, Lugowski and others compared the density of silicone of a person with implant and a person without one. The density of silicone on a person with the implant was 0.0637ug/ml, and the density of a person without the implant was 0.061. There is no significant difference between the two.

Same results followed in number of experiments conducted later. The density of silicone does not increase due to the silicone breast implants. There is no difference between a person with breast augmentation and those without one.

There are millions of experiments with same results.

Let’s refer to a more recent experiment.

In 2003, there was an essay written by Holmich M.D and others. It states, “there is no absolute difference in the bodies of the women with normal implant and collapsed implant in regards to disease, complications, and protein.



It means that although the implant collapses, there is no influence on the body, and you do not get any illness. There are many experiments supporting this as well.

"Damaged implants are relatively harmless, and they do not lead to any other further damage even with time."

There is only one reason for what happened with the incident report on the 12th. In order for this to happen, the cells must be damaged a lot leading to trauma. Also, the implant should be damaged when inserting.
So basically this says that there is a path formed for the silicone to go into the cells.
It is like a fistula being formed. Originally there should not be a path, but the path is formed somehow.

I don’t think there is a possibility that the path is formed automatically and the gel within the capsule came out through that path into the breasts.



All the experiments until today had the hypothesis that the silicone from the implant breaks up, penetrates into the body cells and the blood, travelling throughout the body and reaching the breast cells, and finally coming out through the mother’s milk. The silicone molecule has been tested for density to see how different it is from the normal one.

But the new yesterday said that the silicone that came out could be seen easily visually. This is not what we have been known about. This is not possible unless there is a highway through the silicone and the nipple.

This is repeating itself, but I would like to answer the question what many ask over and over again.

"There is no evidence that there is more silicone in the body of a mother with breast augmentation and that without when breastfeeding.."  It is the same. There are so many evidences and this is the scientific truth. Many scientists have proved this and this is what we can call fact.

SBS news report can be judged as medical accident.

FDA reevaluating the safety of the implant, canceling the permit if there is a problem, enforcing much more on the regulation… are distracting the audience from the fact and getting the mother criticized.

The hands of the surgeon are important.
Not the product.

The patient trusts the doctor, not the product.

I would like to share one last thing before I finish off.

What happens if you eat the silicone. I heard that if the silicones gets in the body, it cannot be removed. This is a big thing. What should I do?

Is silicone really a toxic?

Is silicone really bad for your body if it gets into the body once or even repeatedly?

Semple and others studied on the density of the silicone on the women with implants and those without. The result was 0.0555 ug/ml, and  0.0511.

This is really a little amount and one that cannot be found with basic equipments.

The silicone in the milk for the babies is 0.7. The formula for all those products for the babies in the marts are 4.40.

I was raised with not only mother’s milk but by milk powder and formula as well. There is a very rare number of babies that grow up with just the mother’s milk. What I want to say is that, there are many processed food with silicone when being produced. There are silicone in cow fodder, and even in bubble inhibitor of milk as well. There are silicone in milk package also.

In this industrialized age, we are exposed to silicone in various ways. (1986. Adler and Berlyne)

I am sure that all of you know what the baby milk bottle and etc are made out of.

It is silicone.

Methyl simethicone, nylicon are treatment for baby intestine, stomach behavior. These are silicone as well.
Let me provide you with a summary.

1. Silicone accident was not caused because of its safety but can be looked as a medical accident.

2. There have been many experiments on the silicone gel implant in many countries for many years. The common result in all those experiments is that the “silicone implant is safe”. We must trust this.

3. There is no difference in the density of silicone in the body of the woman with implant, and those without an implant in the breast milk. (This is a fact)




I am quite upset that the news is all about “can silicone be trusted?”
If there is some proper reference from a specialist, there would be more focus on medical accident.
That mother should not be criticized but be cared for and we should pray that the baby stays healthy.

This is all for today. Thank you.