SHOP NOWAt your initial Breast Augmentation consultation with Dr. Tal Roudner, he will inform you of the breast implant materials he offers his patients. Once you decide that you want breast implants, you need to determine which material is right for you (saline or silicone). The best way for you to make this decision is by learning as much as you can about each type of implant. One question that many women ask is, “Where does the saline in a saline implant come from?”
If you are interested in learning more about the Breast Augmentation procedures we have available, please contact Dr. Tal Roudner at 305-767-7719.
Saline Implants – Explained
When Dr. Tal places a saline breast implant, he actually inserts the silicone shell and then fills it with sterile salt water. However, where does this sterile salt water come from? Although the ocean’s water contains dissolved salts, it also contains microscopic organisms. Organisms that you do not want to live within your saline breast implants. Needless to say, the saline that is utilized for breast implants does not come from the ocean.
Pharmaceutical Companies Manufacture Saline
The Laboratoires Arion Company is located in France. It was the first company to manufacture saline. In 1964, the company introduced a saline solution for use as a prosthetic medical device.
Today, along with France’s Laboratoires Arion Company there are several other pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the saline that is used in breast implants.The companies that make sterile saline mix salt (sodium chloride) with sterile water (biological concentration saltwater 0.90 percent w/v of NaCl, ca. 300 mOsm/L). This ensures that the salt water placed in saline breast implants is free of microorganisms, contaminants and bacteria. Sterile water inside the silicone shell is essential as it reduces the patient’s chance of infection.
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Making Saline is a Complicated Process
There are more than 30 steps involved in producing the sterile saline that is used in breast implants. Capt. Valerie Jensen is the Associate Director of the Drug Shortages Program in the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. She states that it takes approximately three weeks to make just one batch of normal sterile saline.
There is a High Demand for Saline
Sterile saline is not just used in saline breast implants. Some of the other uses for saline include:
- Making contact lens solutions/eye drops
- Mixing medications
- Cleaning open wounds
- Filling patient I.V. bags
- Rehydrating an individual who has lost fluids due to vomiting/diarrhea
Saline Leaking from a Breast Implant Cannot Harm You
With a saline breast implant, if something happens and its silicone shell should tear, you cannot be harmed. The concentration of the saline solution that is used in saline breast implants is the same concentration of the salt water that makes up more than 55 percent of your body.
If a saline breast implant ruptures, you will know rather quickly because your breast will begin to shrink; however, if a silicone implant ruptures, it is much less obvious.
Shorter, Smaller Incisions
One of the benefits of a saline breast implant is the ability to place an empty shell into the implant pocket. This allows for shorter and smaller incisions when compared to a shell that is already filled with silicone. Once the empty shell is in place, Dr. Tal can begin filling it with sterile saline.
If you are interested in learning more about the breast augmentation procedures available in Miami, contact our plastic surgery center today. Let us help you attain the body you have always wanted.
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Saline Implants – Where Does the Saline Come From?