Labiaplasty in Turkey

Labiaplasty reduces or reshapes the labia minora, the inner folds of the vulva. The surgeon removes a measured amount of tissue and closes the edge, either by trimming along the free border or by taking a wedge from the middle and joining the remaining edges.

Most women who have it describe a physical problem rather than an aesthetic one: tissue that catches in underwear, hurts on a bike or during exercise, gets in the way during sex, or is uncomfortable in fitted clothes. Appearance matters too, and there is nothing wrong with saying so. What matters clinically is that labia vary enormously between healthy women, and that a surgeon who tells you your anatomy is abnormal is telling you something that is not true.

• Physical symptoms. Catching, chafing, pain on cycling or riding, discomfort during intercourse, difficulty with hygiene. These are the reasons with the clearest benefit.
• Asymmetry that bothers you. One side longer than the other is extremely common and can be evened without reducing both.
• Changes after childbirth or weight loss. Tissue that has stretched or thinned. Surgeons usually want you past childbearing plans and settled at a stable weight.
• Not for anyone under eighteen for appearance alone. Development continues through adolescence, and reputable surgeons decline. Take a clinic that agrees to it as a warning about everything else they do.
• Not while pregnant or breastfeeding, or with an untreated infection. And not while expectations are set by images that are edited, filtered or surgically altered.

1. 1

   Consultation and examination

   The surgeon examines you, discusses which technique fits your anatomy, marks what will be removed and what will be left, and asks what is prompting the request. A consultation that skips the examination has not planned the operation.
2. 2

   Anaesthetic

   Often local anaesthetic with sedation, sometimes general. It is usually a day case.
3. 3

   The reduction

   Tissue is removed by the agreed technique, keeping the blood supply and the nerve supply to the edge intact. Removing too little can be revised. Removing too much cannot.
4. 4

   Closure

   Fine absorbable sutures. They dissolve over weeks and do not need to be removed, which matters when you are travelling home.
5. 5

   Aftercare instructions

   Washing, dressing, what to wear, when to sit for long periods and when you may fly. Get these in writing before you leave the clinic.

• Take the consultation with the operating surgeon. Not a coordinator. This operation is planned on examination, so a video consultation has limits that should be acknowledged.
• Ask about the flight. Sitting for hours soon after surgery is uncomfortable and puts pressure on the wound. Ask the surgeon when they want you to travel and keep the return changeable.
• Ask who handles a problem at home. Wound separation and infection tend to appear after you land. Find out who reviews photographs and who answers.
• Ask about privacy. Which records exist, who sees them, and how consultations and any photographs are stored. You are entitled to a clear answer.
• Confirm the surgeon's specialty. Gynaecologists and plastic surgeons both perform it. What matters is how much of this specific work they do.

• Ask which techniques they perform. Someone who does both trim and wedge can choose. Someone who does one will fit you to it.
• Ask how often they do this operation. Specifically this one, not gynaecological or plastic surgery in general.
• Ask to see healed results at six months. Photographs at two weeks show swelling, and swelling flatters.
• Ask what they would decline. A surgeon who has turned patients away, including for expectations rather than anatomy, is exercising judgement.
• Ask how a revision is handled. Who pays, how long you would wait, and whether you would need to travel back.