Navel piercings, commonly known as belly button piercings, seem like a low-risk, highly fashionable piece of jewelry to invest in. It is a piercing, usually worn with a curved barbell-style jewelry piece, which extends through the upper edge of the belly button, not actually through the belly button itself. Although this seems like a fairly safe piercing to have done, when deciding whether a belly button piercing is for you, it is incredibly important to remember that that there are some risks to consider.
So what are the main dangers of belly button piercings? According to the Children’s Hospital of Boston’s Center for Young Women’s Health, the risks vary widely. These include bacterial infection, excessive bleeding, pain, scar tissue (including thick, discolored Keloid scars), nerve damage, and/or allergic reactions to the metal in the jewelry. If you decide to go ahead, there are ways to avoid these dangers to belly button piercings.
Choose a clean and reputable shop licensed for piercings and tattoos.
First, and most obvious, reason to go to a reputable shop is to reduce the risk of infection and nerve damage. Having a friend pierce anything on your body, or doing it yourself, is never a good idea. To find a reputable shop, ask the people you know (and trust to have sound judgment!) where they went for their tattoos and/or piercings. Once you have an idea of the names of a few shops in your area that are highly reputable, look on-line to see if they have a web site and/or good reviews from previous customers. Good web sites to search for business web pages are www.google.com and www.yellowpages.com.
Once you’ve found a reputable shop, stop by for a visit before you schedule an appointment. Look around! If the floor is dirty and the place doesn’t look clean and well-maintained, walk away! If it looks very clean, ask them about their sterilization procedures. They will tell you whether they use pre-packaged disposable needles, or whether they use an autoclave to sterilize their instruments. If they say that they use an autoclave, ask to see it. Look to see whether the room the machine is in appears clean, and whether the instruments coming out or going in have been placed in packages, since this reduces the risk of the sterilized instruments become contaminated with bacteria after being cleaned.
If they don’t explain their procedures, if the shop isn’t cleaned or well-maintained, if they don’t know what type of sterilization procedures they use, if they don’t want you to see the autoclaving area, or if they tell you that it can only be seen by appointment, leave and don’t return. Listen to your own instincts as well. If you get the creeps or it just doesn’t seem right, don’t schedule an appointment.
If you decide that the shop seems reputable, great! Go for it and schedule an appointment! Be sure to wear a loose-fitting t-shirt and low-cut pants, preferably not denim. Hard fabrics like denim can catch on the piercing and cause many complications and pain!
When you arrive for your appointment, they should ask you to provide proof that you are over 18, usually in the form of a driver’s license or state-issued I.D. They should also request to photo-copy the I.D. for liability purposes. At this point they will also ask you to sign a consent form. This should detail the risks of the piercing, state their sterilization procedures, and should contain information on how to care for your piercing (though this is often a separate hand-out). When you sign the copy for them, they should give you a second copy to take home. Make sure you ask for an additional copy if they don’t offer one, and don’t throw it away! It’s your proof of being pierced there if something goes wrong that they can be held responsible for. You will be shown your options for jewelry and aided in picking out a safe piece, and asked to wait while they prepare the area you will be pierced in.
When they tell you they are ready to pierce you, they should take you back to a separate room with a chair that looks disturbingly like a dental chair. Don’t worry; it’s for your comfort! Watch and make sure that there is clean sheet paper on the chair (just like at the doctor!) to help protect from any bacteria that may be present. This is just a precaution, and they should have assured you already that the seats are sterilized between customers using cleaning solutions.
Your piercing artist should wash his or her hands, preferably where you can see them, and put on sterilized gloves, so be sure to warn them ahead of time if you are sensitive or allergic to latex! They will ask you to lay back and raise your shirt (not all the way though!) and will sanitize your belly button using an antiseptic solution. If all they use is rubbing alcohol, ask them to sterilize it twice, since alcohol doesn’t always kill all bacteria right away. Once the area has been dried with sterile cotton or gauze, they will mark the area with a special marker, and ask you to stand to make sure the holes they marked will line up.
Once you lie back down, it’s time to take a deep breath and get ready. Make sure that the piercing instrument is taken out of a plastic bag at this point (NOT a baggie, a sealed sterilization bag like they used in the autoclave!). Be sure to watch them break the seal on the plastic while you are sitting there. This will ensure that the instrument is sterile! They will use an instrument that looks similar to a very small set of kitchen tongs to pinch up the skin where the piercing will be placed, ask you to take a deep breath, and thread the thick needle through the area. The needle, which is hollow, will then be threaded with the jewelry you picked out, the jewelry will be drawn through the hole, and the ball closure threaded and tightened. Congratulations, you now have your belly button pierced! At this point, the piercer will have you sit up and explain the aftercare procedures that they recommend.
So this seems very simple and safe, right? Yes and no. If you have an experienced piercer and take good care of your new jewelry, yes, but there are still dangers to belly button piercings. Infection is the number one risk, but you’re not safe just because you went to a reputable piercer who uses sterile techniques! Once you get home, you must take care to ensure that the piercing stays clean! Remember that it takes 4 months or more for a belly button piercing to heal completely, so get in the habit of keeping it clean!
Here are a few tips for caring your new jewelry:
1. Wash your hands before touching your piercing, EVERY time! Buy a separate bar of antibacterial soap and keep it in a travel container for soap or in a baggy. You don’t want to wash your hands with the same bar of soap that somebody used to wash after using the restroom! Bar soap can harbor bacteria! If possible, I would recommend using a liquid, fragrance-free antibacterial soap, since this is easy to lather and clean with and is much less likely to be contaminated with bacteria.
2. Clean your piercing! GENTLY soap up the belly button with the soap 2-3 times a day. SOAK off any crusty material (this is a normal part of the healing process) but do not pull on it or you will damage the healing tissue. Gently rotate the jewelry so that the soap enters the hole, let it sit for about a minute, and then rinse completely clean! If you were given a special cleanser by your piercer or different directions, follow them!
3. Wash your bedding frequently! Make sure that your sheets and blankets are kept clean while your piercing is healing. This is especially important if you sleep on your stomach!
4. Wear clean, loose-fitting clothing and pajamas! Rubbing and irritation from clothes is horrible for new piercings, so be sure to wear loose tops and low-cut, soft material pants to avoid irritating the piercing. If your clothing may catch, rub, or irritate your piercing, cover it with a hard ventilated eye patch to make sure you don’t cause scaring or infection.
5. Do not bathe or swim! Bathtubs, swimming pools, and standing water can harbor all sorts of bacteria, so no swimming while your piercing is healing! Take showers only!
6. Do not remove your jewelry! Removing the jewelry can not only allow the hole to close up if it has not finished cleaning, but can allow bacteria to contaminate the post of the jewelry or the piercing site with bacteria.
7. Make sure to check your ball closure frequently! Use clean hands or a disposable clean paper product (unscented facial tissue or sterile gauze pads) to make sure your piercing is closed tight several times a day and before and after cleaning. Remember the tighty-right, lefty-loosey rule! It is also a good idea to keep a second clean ball closure in a CLEAN baggy with you at all times just in case you loose a closure!
8. Be sure to clean all jewelry before inserting it into the piercing! If you decide to change the jewelry, be sure to wait at least 3 months so that the piercing will be healed enough to handle the change.
9. Only use jewelry made of implant grade stainless steal! The different metals used to make jewelry can cause different effects. Choosing the right piece of jewelry is important to avoid the dangers of your belly button piercing being rejected. If the piercing metal is rejected, your body will attempt to force the jewelry out of the body, causing scar tissue and potentially nerve damage. Since gold plating can easily flake off and cause irritation, and solid gold is more easily rejected, gold is not a recommended metal for body jewelry. In addition, silver can tarnish and permanently stain the healing skin, which just doesn’t look good at all! If you really want gold jewelry, wait until your piercing is completely healed and only use jewelry that is at least 18-karat gold. Your best bet, and only option when getting the initial piercing, will be stainless steal or highly polished titanium. They are both used in medical procedures and are least likely to cause your body to reject the jewelry. No matter what jewelry you choose, be sure the jewelry is clean and made specifically for body piercings.
It is also very important to care for your jewelry if you are active in sports. When playing sports, it is very important too keep your jewelry covered to avoid having it torn out. This can best be done with a hard, vented eye patch placed over the belly button area. These can be found at Wal-Mart or any local pharmacy, and can be held on through adhesive patches, surgical tape, or an Ace bandage wrap (all located at the pharmacy as well!). I cannot emphasize this enough, as I have had personal experience with the greatest danger of belly button piercings – having them ripped out!
At the time of the accident, my belly button had been pierced for close to a year and was completely healed. I had a pretty little dangly piece of jewelry in and was driving in a midriff-showing shirt top. Normally, I would have made sure to tape an eye patch over the top of the piercing to ensure the seat belt wouldn’t snag it, but was rushed that morning getting out of the house. About 10 minutes into my drive, I was side-swiped by a reckless driver and sure enough, the belly button ring caught on the seatbelt and was pulled down through the hole, causing a good amount of bleeding. The doctors at the emergency room had to force the jewelry the rest of the way out, the same way the seat belt had pulled it, and there were several cuts along the edge of the piercing that caused the bleeding. The trauma to the area caused scar tissue and a very nasty-looking healed piercing site.
Despite this accident, and the other dangers of belly button piercing, I would still completely recommend that a belly button piercing is a relatively safe form of expression. If properly cared for, it can be quite a cute or sexy piercing to show off with a midriff shirt or low-cut jeans, but if not cared for it can cause many complications. It is critical, if you decide to get any piercing, to take good care of it to prevent infection or injury.
No Author, “Body Piercing: A Guide for Teens”, Children’s Hospital Boston Center for Young Women’s Health.
No Author, “Body & Facial Piercing Aftercare Guidelines”, The Association of Professional Piercers.
