COSMETIC GYNECOLOGY

Modern gynecology listens, understands, and empowers.

- By Dr. Amrinder Bajaj

A very lucrative branch of gynaecology has come up in a big way in recent times - cosmetic gynaecology.

Every other day, I receive mails offering courses and workshops for the same at steep prices, which are justified considering the number of patients that have awakened to its immense possibilities. As with plastic surgery elsewhere, this can be divided into reparative and beautification, but unlike plastic surgery, there is another issue it addresses - and that is enhanced sexual satisfaction.

On one hand, there are women who develop an embarrassing condition after childbirth and ageing - that of urinary leakage while coughing, sneezing, or laughing. If severe, it might lead to withdrawal from social interaction, consigning them to a life of smelly solitude. Nowadays, there are both surgical and nonsurgical methods available for the management of the same, provided the sufferer is aware of the fact that such a treatment exists. Most think that this is the price they have to pay for having babies or growing old and resign themselves to a life of quiet misery.

At times, an occasional woman sustains such severe injuries during vaginal delivery that her vaginal and anal tract become one! As a result, she is unable to hold gas or her stools - a horrible state to live in. Thankfully, this can be repaired surgically.

Often, women feel that a vagina loosened by childbirth has made sex less enjoyable, more so for the husband whose children she has borne, and want to get herself tightened down there. Till now, this needed surgery, but with the advent of LASER and RF (radio frequency), it has become an OPD procedure. Then there is a crop of young women who indulge in premarital sex but, in hymen-obsessed societies like ours, would like to go to the bridal chamber of an arranged husband's bed with their 'virginity' restored. This can be done by a procedure called hymenoplasty.