Gynaes alarmed by genital plastic surgery trend‎

 

 

Saturday, Sep 15, 2012
Reuters
By Deena Beasley

 

LOS ANGELES - Trained as a gynecologist and reconstructive surgeon, Dr. John Miklos calls himself a "medical tailor," specialising in surgery to reshape a woman's private parts.

 

The Atlanta surgeon, who has performed gynecological surgery for nearly 20 years, cites cases of patients who say their sexual response improved after vaginoplasty, a procedure to surgically tighten a vagina stretched by childbirth or aging.

 

"Women come to me and say they don't have the urge to have sex anymore because they don't feel anything," Miklos said. "I guarantee that if a man didn't feel anything, he wouldn't have sex either."

Female genital cosmetic surgery is a small segment of the US plastic surgery market, but it is growing, with thousands of women estimated to undergo such procedures every year.

 

That growth comes despite a warning from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), in a 2007 notice to member physicians, that strongly questioned the medical validity and safety of female genital cosmetic surgery.

 

Earlier this year the group debated the trend at its annual meeting in San Diego.

 

"None of these procedures have proven effectiveness, and there is potential for harm," Dr. Cheryl Iglesia, a Washington, D.C., gynecologist and former ACOG committee member, wrote in an editorial published in the June issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.