A breast implant can break like just about any other man-made thing. The computer I’m writing on, the car you drive, everything is susceptible at some point to fail. People do not realise it but, any medical device which is introduced into the body such as a heart valve, a hip prosthesis (the king will vouch for this) can fail.

The breast implants can fail. And for various reasons. One is due to their own degradation. Obviously the longer the implant is in the woman’s body, the more the chance of failure. Although in many women it can last all of their lives, a girl of 18 years old has to realise that at some point in her life they will need changing.

Another of the reasons is due to a trauma. Although I have jumped on an implant and it didn’t break (and that’s saying something) a fierce impact or repetitive strong impacts (parachuting) could technically damage the implant and eventually produce a breakage.

Another cause is that the surgeon can sometimes overlook things, introducing implants which are too big through small incisions. There exists a tremendous pressure from the patients to have the smallest scar possible (even though later they cannot be seen). And at the same time, there are patients who want the implants to be very big. When you try to pass something very big through a small space, either it won’t go through or you hurt them doing it. And in this case, as the implant is very elastic, it will probably get damaged.

And there are other causes, such as the capsular contracture, other breast surgeries, an unfortunate biopsy, etc, but I think that if we stick to the idea that implants last a long time, a really long time, but just like any other man made thing, they can fail. Just like we also fail and have to see a doctor!