Kiss it, haters! Kim Kardashian shared a photo of her especially plump "pregnancy lips" via Instagram on Monday, Aug. 24, and the whole world (i.e. the Internet) seemed to scream in disbelief.
More than 18,000 comments were left on the pic within 24 hours of posting, which she snapped while vacationing in St. Barts the week before, and most of them read the same—that plastic surgery, and not hormones, was to thank for the second-time mom-to-be's enhanced kisser. Just read a few of the notes:
@judgey_mcjudgers73: "oooh here I thought she had lip injection. Silly me."
@christina_anas: "Or just lip injection"
@andrea_alvey: "'Pregnancy lips'"
@frxncy: "More like fake"
@_mullz: "Actually they are called 'fillers'"
Well, step aside! Us Weekly spoke to Rand Rusher RN, a certified aesthetic nurse specialist, and he said that plush "pregnancy lips" can and do absolutely happen to some women.
"During pregnancy, hormones can cause fluid retention, which leads to increased swelling," Rusher told Us. "This can occur in different parts of the body, including the face. It's a common occurrence." (So common, in fact, that Kardashian, 34, isn't even the only celeb to have experienced them—twice. Jessica Simpson tweeted that she had "pregnancy lips," too, in 2012 while pregnant with her first child, Maxwell.)
But while Rusher, who also has his own high-end medical clothing line called Stitch Lab, confirms that "pregnancy lips" are perfectly possible, he also notes that they don't last forever. "The lips usually go down after birth, but can take up to six weeks to go back to the original size," he said.
As for those plastic surgery comments left on Kardashian's Instagram page, Rusher explained that surgical procedures to increase the size of one's lips aren't necessarily safe for the baby, so a pregnant woman would want to avoid them. "No one studies elective procedures on a pregnant woman," he told Us. "Any procedure that can be postponed until after pregnancy is wise. The benefits don’t outweigh the possible risks to the baby."
