Article for the 24th and 27th of January

Breast implants: Venezuelan women count the cost

By Sarah GraingerBBC News, Caracas

Women affected by faulty implants are getting together to seek redress

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Mary Karla Perdomo was looking forward to a family Christmas in the hot dusty town of San Juan de los Morros in central Venezuela.

But news that French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) had been producing faulty breast implants which had been distributed around the world ruined those plans.

Mary Karla, 22, had had breast augmentation surgery three years earlier and apart from some recent back pain, she had had no trouble after the procedure.

But she went to her doctor anyway to have her implants checked and received devastating news.

"They told me the implants are already ruptured and the prosthesis has already leaked into my right breast and it's starting in the left one too," says Mary Karla, a medical student.

Suhail Cantalamessa is afraid her implants will rupture

She needs to have her implants taken out as soon as possible.

Her family is scrambling to help her pay the price tag of some $4,600 (£3,000) for extraction and replacement of the prostheses at a private clinic.

The Venezuelan government has offered free surgery to remove any PIP implants but is not offering reconstruction or replacement.

"I originally had the surgery to look better, not worse, and if I just have the implants removed now I think it will be a psychological blow. It's going to look really ugly," Mary Karla says.

Dilemma

Like Mary Karla, Suhail Cantalamessa is reluctant to take the government up on its offer.

"No-one really wants to go to a public hospital. We want to use our own doctors or chose a clinic to both remove and replace the implants," says the 29-year-old electrical engineer from Caracas.

Suhail's situation is not an emergency - initial tests have shown that her implants are still intact.

But knowing that they could rupture is, she says, like a ticking time bomb in her chest.

"I like to go jogging, but I feel I can't exercise because I'm afraid they'll break," she says.

Suhail had saved up for some time before she had the surgery three years ago, visiting several clinics and seeking personal recommendations from friends before deciding on a doctor.

Plastic surgery, especially breast augmentation, is widespread in Venezuela

She cannot afford to pay for surgery to remove and replace the implants purely as a precaution, but she does not want to wait until she is in the same situation as Mary Karla.

Both have joined a group of more than 400 women in Venezuela who are suing five local distributors of the PIP implants.

"They're Venezuelan companies which made money from this product and they should now make that money available to the victims to get surgery to make repairs," said lawyer Dr Gilberto Andrea, who specialises in medical malpractice suits.

Dr Andrea says the group will later consider bringing other lawsuits against the French state and any individual doctors who may be at fault.

The women came together through a Facebook page "Afectadas por Protesis Mamarias PIP Venezuela" (Women affected by PIP Breast Implants Venezuela) which has grown rapidly in recent weeks.

That number is likely to keep on increasing.

Feeling guilty

The Venezuelan Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery estimates between 35,000 and 40,000 women in the country have breast enlargement surgery each year.

In Venezuela - as in much of Latin America - there is little, if any, stigma to having plastic surgery.

What could be seen as vanity in some societies, is admired as good personal presentation in Venezuela.

Weekends are for spending at the beach and showing off your physical attributes, be they natural or man-made.

Continue reading the main story

PIP implants: the risks

• The silicone inside the implants is not medical grade - but was intended for use in mattresses
• Tests have not shown any increased risk of toxicity from this filler compared to normal implants
• But mechanical testing has shown the implant covers have an increased risk of rupturing
• The gel inside can irritate, increasing the risk of inflammation reaction - making removal more difficult
• There is no increased breast cancer risk
• One case of a rare form of cancer called anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) was recently reported in France
• French and US experts suggest there is a small but increased risk of this cancer for women with breast implants in general

• PIP breast implants: Your stories

The plastic surgery sector has built on this cultural cornerstone to become big business.

There are hundreds of clinics in the country. Special bank loans are available to pay for cosmetic surgery procedures.

But this business is at risk if the PIP affair ends up turning the tide of public opinion.

As dozens of women gathered in central Caracas earlier this month to see court documents filed, 50-year-old Charo Perez turned to me to complain about her situation.

She was angry and frustrated by the casual response she had had from the clinic that had performed her surgery.

She was worried, too, about her health should her implants rupture.

But she also felt depressed.

"I feel guilty," she admitted "I feel like I should never have had this done."

Mary Karla also regrets her decision to go under the knife.

"If I could go back in time," she says, "I wouldn't have the surgery again."

Article for the 24th and 27th of January

Couple Finally Reveals Child's Gender, Five Years After Birth

By Piper Weiss, Shine Staff | Parenting 

It's a boy! And he's five. Beck Laxton, 46, and partner Kieran Cooper, 44, have spent half the decade concealing the genderof their son, Sasha.

"I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping,"Laxton said in aninterview with the Cambridge News. "Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?"

Take a look at the most controversial parenting stories of the year.

Laxton, a UK-based web editor, and her partner, Cooper, decided to keep Sasha's sex a secret when he was still in the womb. The birth announcement stated the name of the gender-neutral name of their child, but skipped the big reveal. Up until recently, the couple only told a few close friends and family members that Sasha was a boy and managed to keep the rest of the world in the dark. But now that he's starting school the secret's out.

For years, Becks has been referring to her child, the youngest of three, as "the infant" on her personal blog. But guarding the public from her son's gender was only part of her quest to let her kid just be a kid.

Sasha dresses in clothes he likes -- be it a hand-me-downs from his sister or his brother. The big no-no's are hyper-masculine outfits like skull-print shirts. In one photo, sent to friends and family, Sasha's dressed in a shiny pink girl's swimsuit. "Children like sparkly things," says Beck. "And if someone thought Sasha was a girl because he was wearing a pink swimming costume, then what effect would that have? "

Sasha's also not short on dolls, though Barbie is also off limits. "She's banned because she's horrible," Laxton says in Cambridge interview.

On a macro level she hopes her son sets an example for other parents and makes them reconsider buying their sons trucks or forcing their daughters into tights. She's seen how those consumer trappings affect how and who kids play with in the sandbox.

See how one preschool is fighting gender bias in the classroom

But the sandbox is just a precursor to the classroom. When Sasha turned five and headed to school, Laxton was forced to make her son's sex public. That meant Sasha would have to get used to being a boy in the eyes of his peers. Still, his mom is intervening. While the school requires different uniforms for boys and girls, Sasha wears a girl's blouse with his pants.

"I don't think I'd do it if I thought it was going to make him unhappy, but at the moment he's not really bothered either way. We haven't had any difficult scenarios yet."

Last year another couple, Kathy Witterick, 38, and David Stocker, 39, of Toronto made a similar decision when they had their baby, Storm. At the time, certain psychiatric experts voiced concern over their decision. "To have a sense of self and personal identity is a critical part of normal healthy development," Dr. Eugene Beresin, director of training in child and adolescent psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, told ABC News. "This blocks that and sets the child up for bullying, scapegoating and marginalization."

But as parents well know, bullying is hard for any child to avoid. It's more important to raise someone who's confident enough in himself to overcome peer pressure. It's also important to have his parents have his back (remember the mom who defended her son's choice in a Halloween costume?) Maybe Sasha's early years will be character building, maybe he'll have a higher emotional quotient being raised with dual perspectives on gender. Or the reverse could be true: Sasha may have less of a formed identity because of his upbringing, and feel angry at his mom for dressing him in flowery shirts and telling the world about it. Then again, maybe he'll get over it.

As for Laxton, she says she's open to her son pursing any career or sexual preference he chooses as he matures. "As long as he has good relationships and good friends," she says, "then nothing else matters, does it?"