‘I’m a professional model with one breast and turned down an NHS boob job’

Model Rebecca Butcher talks about her condition called Poland Syndrome as she supports an NHS centre at Birmingham Children's Hospital

Transcript

00:00 Look, as someone with one boob, I'm constantly being told to just get a boob job. Just do

00:06 this. Just do that. And the word "just" makes it sound so easy. I think a lot of people

00:12 aren't aware of the risks of surgery, especially on your chest, where your heart and your lungs

00:17 are. And a boob job isn't the only option when it comes to dealing with something like

00:22 this. You could have a boob job, which would be an implant. You could also have a reduction.

00:27 You could also have the muscle from the back taken to the front if you have the condition

00:31 that I have, which is called Poland Syndrome, which means the muscle on this side of my

00:34 chest is deformed. There is also an option to put what people describe as kind of like

00:40 an airbag under here, and it gets filled up over time to stretch the skin. So there isn't

00:45 just boob jobs. But all of these options come with their own risks. Any surgery does. So

00:52 the risks of a breast implant is something called breast implant illness, where the body

00:57 can reject this foreign object being inside your body and make you very sick. And because

01:01 of the chest muscle deformity that I have, I've spoken to women that had an implant put

01:05 on top of that muscle, and it would not sit properly on top of where it was supposed to

01:09 be, and it flipped and ruptured and had to be removed. And some implants only have a

01:14 certain lifespan, so you have to have them changed every so many years. So if you commit

01:19 to having an implant today, you might have to have it changed in ten years, and another

01:24 ten years, and another ten years, and that is so many surgeries for the rest of your

01:27 life that you have to recover from and commit to. And if I had an implant on this side,

01:32 I would also have to have an implant on the bigger side as well to make sure that they

01:35 are the same size and shape. I think the option with less risks would be to have the larger

01:40 side removed to make it smaller so that it's the same size as this one. But that isn't

01:45 completely riskless either. With any surgery, you have a chance of infection, you have a

01:49 chance that your body won't be able to recover properly, you have to take a lot of time off

01:53 work and school to get over the fact that you've had a major surgery, and you're losing

01:58 such a big part of your body, a whole part of your skin is coming off. Some people with

02:03 Poland Syndrome, the condition that I have, can have their back muscle taken from the

02:07 back and moved to the front to replace it. But then, if that fails, if your body rejects

02:13 it, then you are missing a back muscle and a front muscle. You'd have to decide whether

02:17 - if it does work - whether you'd prefer to have a stronger back or a stronger front.

02:21 And in my personal opinion, I think I would rather have a stronger back muscle.

02:26 So putting anything into your body that's not really supposed to be there, there is

02:30 always a risk. And I'm not against other people doing that, I absolutely understand that for

02:33 some people this absolutely changes their life. It improves their mental health and

02:38 self-image and how they feel about themselves, and it can really help people's mental health.

02:43 And I think that's great. So I'm not against other people having surgery, I just don't

02:47 want it for myself.

02:48 But we have to stop treating surgery like it is not a big deal. It's just something

02:52 that you can just go and do and have in your free time. It's not just a small thing. I

02:57 mean, I could do all of those things, or I could just live with it, which is the easiest

03:02 option to me.