What's a Brazilian butt lift and why's it so dangerous?

Ben Garves Podcast: Fitness, Nutrition, and Activism

Your Brazilian butt lift may bite you in the butt. Sorry. That headline was just asking for a dad joke.

Spend ten minutes on social media nowadays and it's hard to ignore the emphasis society has been putting on the ol’, as Forest Gump would say, “buttocks.”

Brazilian butt lifts are more dangerous than other cosmetic surgeries

That emphasis shows as the number of Brazilian butt lifts being performed is growing rapidly, despite the procedure having the highest mortality rate of any cosmetic surgery. Yes, greater than liposuction, breast augmentation, nose jobs, and the other myriad of tucks and lifts.

We live at an interesting intersection of body positivity - being proud of who you are and having the ability to physically manifest who you are inside. Those two things can complement each other, or they can live at odds with one another.

What does a Brazilian butt lift cost?

People are flouting their naturally-born, hard-earned, or hard-paid-for hourglass figures, and it has many dashing to surgeons, waving cash, and booking gluteal enhancements. The Brazilian butt lift, often referred to as a “BBL” can run anywhere between nine and ten-thousand dollars. It takes fat from the sides, back, and stomach, and injects it into the booty.

How common are Brazilian butt lifts?

In 2020, it’s estimated by the Aesthetic Society that there were over forty-thousand butt augmentations. It’s a procedure which, according to a report by the Aesthetic Surgery Education and Research Foundation in 2017, results in death for two out of every 6,000 procedures. In fact, the number was so high that in 2018, surgeons in the United Kingdom received guidance from the British Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery to stop performing the procedure outright. It’s not a mandate, but it is a strong condemnation.

Why are Brazilian butt lifts so dangerous?

Your butt seems like an innocent place to store a little badonk, but the buttocks actually have a vast network of blood vessels, some of which are very large and drain into the inferior vena cava, a vessel which is a highway directly to the heart. If the fat being injected gets into one of these main passageways, it can cause immediate death as it travels to the heart and lungs.

This may not be a deterrent for many, especially if you view yourself as living in a body you’re not comfortable with and one in which hard work can’t get you the body desire or feel at home in. But the least we can do is to do our research, be aware of the risks, and put ourselves in the best possible position to lead a happy, healthy life.