Plastic Surgery

Would you have plastic surgery? Would you let your teenager have surgery? Or how about your pre-teen? Okay, I'll take it one step further. Would you let your pre-teen child with Down Syndrome have plastic surgery? Well, apparently, some would.

There is a rising trend among parents of children with Down Syndrome allowing them to have plastic surgery to remove or "correct" their Down Syndrome characteristics. Such procedures include total facial reconstruction and tongue reduction. Preposterous, you say? Not to some parents...

"It is a challenge for the aesthetic surgeon to make good-looking peoplemore handsome. But it is even more rewarding to "normalize" people who areisolated because of their ugly facial expression so that they may bereintegrated into a group of friends from which they may have already anxiouslywithdrawn. Children with Down Syndrome are frequently concealed from thepublic by their parents. The children suffer from two disadvantages: Their mental abilities are limited and they have ugly facial features."

-excerpted from an article authored by R.R. Olbrisch and included in Dr. Len Leshins discussion of Plastic Surgery in children with Down Syndrome appearing on his DS Health Website.

"Preoperative frontal view of 13 year-old patient with Down Syndrome. Postoperative front view 4 months after bilateral upper and lower blepharoplasty, excision of buccal fat pads, nasal reconstruction with deminerialzed bone, bilateral molar augmentation, and bilateral medial canthopexy."

-current excerpt from the International Craniofacial Institute

That doesn't even look like the same child. Listen, I don't want anyone to make fun of Raymond but it's going to happen. I know that. It breaks my heart but that's reality. People are mean. How dare these parents put their children through these procedures for vanity's sake? I just don't get it. If a parent is so upset with the thought that their child may be treated differently because of their disability, then it is THEIR job to help educate the children and families that will interact with your child. Right from the start, parents need to educate their children's peers and make them aware that this (Down Syndrome, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, etc.) is not something to be scared of. Young children are naturally curious and kind. Children are taught by their families how to react to people who are different; whether that is an appropriate response or not. Educating "normal" children and their relatives is the only way our children will have an equal opportunity to experience school, work and everyday life. I understand that my child is different. He's mentally and physically different - and you know what? It's okay not to be sure what to think about that. For someone who has never been around a person with a disability it can be strange and uncomfortable. But it's my job, as Raymond's mother, to show people that yes he may be different in many ways, but he's also the same in even more ways. Changing his appearance is not going to change him on the inside. Making his face look more main steam is not going to change the fact that he will always be a few steps behind intellectually. If a child with Down Syndrome has plastic surgery, won't the parent still have to explain why the child looks "normal" but is intellectually challenged? Then the parent will have to go into an entire other subject about plastic surgery and why they choose it. Isn't that the same type of negative attention they were afraid of in the first place?

Embrace your child. You are all they have.

Besides, why would you want to change any of these faces?

Until Next Time!

Lots of Love,