Symmastia

Symmastia means that the breasts are touching together in the middle of the chest to form a sort of uniboob. You can be born with symmastia (congenital) or it can develop as a complication of surgery, such as breast implant reconstruction. Regardless of whether it’s congenital or a complication of reconstruction surgery, symmastia is a relatively rare condition.

Symmastia happens when the skin and muscle between the breasts over the breastbone (sternum) come apart and the two pockets of tissue that hold the breast implants come together to form one pocket. As a result, the breast implants meet together in the middle, creating the appearance of a uniboob and sometimes causing discomfort or pain.

Symmastia can develop after breast implant reconstruction surgery if, during a mastectomy, surgeons remove too much tissue near the breastbone. It can also happen if the breast implants are too large. Larger implants require a bigger pocket and put more tension on the skin that has to attach to the breastbone to hold the breast implant in place.

Correcting symmastia can be difficult and require more than one surgery.

In most cases, to fix symmastia, surgery involves removing the breast implants and replacing them with new (usually smaller) implants. Your plastic surgeon also reattaches the skin that has come apart from the breastbone using internal stitches and makes adjustments to the pockets of tissue in the chest that holds the implants in place, often reinforcing their boundaries using a dermal matrix product (a skin substitute made mostly of collagen) or mesh.

Your plastic surgeon might recommend correcting symmastia with flap reconstruction surgery. After removing your breast implants, your plastic surgeon replaces them with transplanted flaps of tissue from another place on your body.