Most women who come to a cosmetic gynecologist or plastic surgeon desire labiaplasty for either reasons of the aesthetics or because of problems caused by an anatomic anomaly of labial hypertrophy.
The patient’s perception of her own anatomy can sometimes be slightly distorted. It is not uncommon to sometimes have patients who have perfectly normal size labia minora, to the point that they are extremely small, yet feel that they are horribly enlarged. This distorted self body image of a patient should alert the physician to refrain from encouraging any surgery of this nature.
There are patients who also complain of chronic pain in their labia. This can be due to various vulvar conditions and it must be important that the clinician explain to the patient that a labiaplasty may not relieve this of pain post operatively.
Finally women with active herpetic infections or presence of diffuse condyloma should refrain from attempting any type of surgical reduction of the labia.
