The Mommy Makeover
As a mom, I can speak to the insane changes that take place during and after pregnancy. I remember calling one of my friends from the floor of my closet when I was 8 months pregnant and in tears, begging her to promise me my body would return to its normal state! It did... well, sort of.
Pregnancy stretches not only your skin but your abdominal muscles as well. Your breasts also enlarge and fill with milk to feed that little biscuit! After breast-feeding, your skin envelope can be deflated, and your nipple positions could even be lower.
A “Mommy Makeover” addresses those issues. In order to refill the breast skin envelope, we usually put in a breast implant. This goes under the muscle and fills up the lost volume and improves the appearance and feel of the breast. If you have fuller breasts, a breast lift or even small reduction might be in order. In this case, there would be no breast implant used. Dr. Deuber does this by removing the extra skin and moving the nipple positions up (back to their rightful place). Even though there is a scar all the way around it, we do not actually remove your nipple to do this operation. We just move the position. Sometimes, a woman has both significant deflation and significant droop; in this case they need an implant and a lift. Everyone is different and the approach must be customized to each patient. That is why you want to go to a Plastic Surgeon certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery who does these operations all the time.... Like hundreds per year.
The second part of a “Mommy Makeover” is usually a tummy tuck or abdominoplasty. This is where Dr. Deuber makes an incision on your lower abdomen and lifts up the skin and removes the excess (usually everything below the bellybutton gets taken away). We then pull the skin down like a window shade and reposition the belly button. While we are in there, Dr. Deuber tightens the muscles. He corrects that muscle stretch or diastasic created while you were baking that baby in your belly. We can also sometimes do some liposuction at the same time, commonly hips/flanks and/or thighs. Women love the results from this operation but in general freak out about the scar. The scar fades. And after about a year it is usually pretty hard to see. Most of our patients are happier to have a tight belly with a scar rather than a loose belly and not scar.
Recovery from this combination operation is usually requires at least a week of taking it pretty easy. You are limited from working out for about 3 weeks of no cardio, 4-6 weeks of no weight lifting and no abdominal workouts for 6 weeks.
Let me know if this sounds right for you!
Due to patient privacy rights (and to avoid grossing you out), I'm not posting photos of the actual procedure here, but all the details (including before + after photos) can be found HERE on Dr. Deuber's website. For more information on the "Mommy Makeover" or to set up a consultation, please visit www.DrDeuber.com.
xo
Cary