Saline breast implants, like gel implants, are silicone rubber shells but they contain sterilized saline solution instead of silicone gel. Saline implants also come in various shell thickness, shell surface (smooth or textured), profile, and shape (round or anatomical). Saline breast implants can be either fixed or inflatable. Fixed implants contain all the saline they are ever going to contain; inflatable implants have a valve in them that allows them to be filled to the desired size during surgery. Saline implants can also be adjusted after surgery, as well. They range in size from 120cc to 850cc; women wanting saline implants in larger sizes must have them custom made.

There are three different types of valves for saline breast implants: leaf, kink, and diaphragm. The leaf valve seems to irritate implant patients the most, and implants with them tend to rupture more often than implants with the other types of valves. Some manufacturers no longer use leaf valves. Most valves are located on the front of the breast implant.

Saline breast implants are thought to be safer than silicone gel implants, mostly because they don’t contain silicone. When the implant ruptures, the body just absorbs the saline or evacuates it, like drinking a glass of water. As well, most manufacturers make the saline solution fairly close to neutral pH, so that it really is just like excess water in the body. Other advantages of saline breast implants include their adjustability, decreased likelihood of capsular contraction (hardening), and significantly cheaper cost.

Saline breast implants, of course, have their disadvantages. The chief health disadvantage seems to be that bacteria and fungus may grow inside of them. However, no negative health consequences have been reported from this occurrence – it’s just gross. Cosmetically, saline breast implants are more likely to cause visible rippling or wrinkling of the breast, and they tend to look and feel fake. If saline breast implants are not properly filled, then sloshing can sometimes be heard from outside the body. Generally, however, these problems are less likely with a woman who has more breast tissue to begin with.

Many surgeons believe that the weight of saline breast implants makes them more likely to “bottom out” than silicone implants. A breast has bottomed out when the supporting tissue on the underside of the breast weakens and falls, destroying the crease on the underside of the breast. The whole breast then appears to be attached to the chest wall, like an earlobe that is attached to the side of the head. However, newer designs and sub-muscular placement of the implant, as well as filling it to the proper size, should lessen the chances of bottoming out.

Most surgeons and women seem to prefer gel implants to saline breast implants, but their significant health and cost advantages should make them much more popular than they are. In the United States and Canada, saline breast implants are the only ones available on the market, so that too, is helping to improve their popularity and foster new developments that allow them to compare even more favorably to gel implants.

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