‘Designer vaginas’ the rage for Dutch women

16 February 2005

AMSTERDAM — An increasing number of Dutch women are opting for plastic surgery on their vagina, citing discomfort during sport, embarrassment during sex and aesthetic reasons as prime motivating factors, it has been claimed.

Despite the lack of figures, gynaecologists and cosmetic surgeries also claim that plastic surgery on vaginas has become “a trend”, newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reported on Wednesday. 

“Many plastic surgeons will perform several per year and the same will probably apply to gynaecologists. There are perhaps several hundred to several thousand operations per year,” a director with the Dutch plastic surgery association, Dr Hans de Bruijn, said.

Most operations are designed to reduce the size of a woman’s inner labia (labia minora), which can sometimes be larger than the outer labia (labia majora).

“It gets in the way, for example, when sitting on a bike seat or during sex. It can also lead to embarrassment during sex,” De Bruijn said. “In comparison, most women with a very large labia don’t have any troubles.”

Most vaginal cosmetic surgery is carried out at private health clinics in the Netherlands. Dr Sylvester Maass, a surgeon with the MediNova Kliniek Klein Rosendael and Ziekenhuis Gelderse Vallei, performs two labia operations per month. A year ago, he wasn’t even performing an average of one a month.

“This is the tip of the iceberg. I hear from patients that family doctors are not easily convinced of the physical and emotional problems women experience due to a large labia. As a result, they have to live with discomfort for an unnecessarily long time,” Maass said.
      
If the operation is performed by a gynaecologist, health insurers will cover the cost. But if a plastic surgeon performs the operation, the patient has to pay the majority of costs.

De Bruijn states that a labia reduction is a relatively small operation, carrying only the risk of post-operative bleeding. Maass admits there is a risk that too much of the labia — soft and elastic tissue — can be removed. Half of his patients have returned for a second operation to correct irregular results.

In the US, labia corrective surgery is widely accepted and women are also opting to have surgery narrowing their vaginal cavity. The surgery is intended to improve their sex life and photos of pornography stars often serve for women as the “designer vagina”.

[Copyright Expatica News 2005]

Subject: Dutch news