8 Year-old gets Botox injections for "wrinkles"

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - May 12, 2011 (WPVI) -- 8-year-old Britney Campbell says" it hurts, but I'm used to it." Her mother, Kerry, defends the practice, saying it's necessary to compete in the world of kiddie pageants.

The pain Britney Campbell describes doesn't come from falling off her bike, or losing a tooth, but from Botox injections administered by her mother, an aesthetician.

ABC's Lara Spencer asked her, "Can you show me where you do it? Can you point on your face?"

Britney responds, "Yeah-- sometimes I do it right here."

Lara asks, "And what do you do it for?"

"I don't know," says Britney.

She adds, "Oh yeah-- I see, like, wrinkles and-- it just, like, I just, like, don't, like, think wrinkles are nice on little girls."

Britney's mother says she started giving the injections to keep up with the beauty-take-all world of the pageant circuit.

She says it was an idea planted by other pageant moms.

Kerry recalls, "And they were just telling me about the lines on her face. And how, you know, a lot of the moms there, they're giving their kids botox. And-- and it's pretty much like the thing. I'm not the only one that does it. A lot of moms do it. I think a lot of the kids making the big impression on the lines on her face and stuff probably influenced her to want to do it a little bit more.""

She says Britney asked her for Botox, sort of.

Kerry says, "We talked about it. She didn't exactly ask me about it, but I know that she was complaining about her face, having wrinkles, and things like that."

"I do the botox myself. It's safe. I have no problem with doing it for her."

Campbell wouldn't tell ABC where she gets the Botox, but she told a British tabloid newspaper she gets it online.

Pictures taken by the family show how Britney in near-tears, holding an icepack to her head and face.

"It hurts and I get used to it and--" she says.

Los Angeles psychiatrist Dr. Charles Sophy say, "When I first hear this story, I think my initial reaction is to be a little bit in disbelief, and a little bit horrified."

He says the treatments could be causing emotional side effects.

"There's a lot of psychological damage that can be caused," he adds.

Kerry Campbell says she just wants her daughter to look her best.

"It's a tough world, the pageant world, I'm telling you, the kids are harsh - and being confident is something she has to be with them," she says.

Britney believes she sees a difference after a treatment.

"It looks way better. Like beautiful, pretty - all those nice words," she says.

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california, san francisco, plastic surgery, healthcheck

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