Plastic surgery before possible Pregnancy?

hopefull loser · March 22, 2007

I'm curious. If you require a Tummy Tuck, yet are thinking of becoming pregnant when goal weight is reached, should you still get said TT? Would the skin stretching become an issue, or grow with you during development?

Thank you for any candidness,

Lori

faithmd · March 22, 2007

It will grow with you, but have even less elasticity than it did before (will strech thinner, if that makes sense). You'd probably be much more likely to develop some good-sized "stretch marks" as well. IMHO, you'd be better off to wait.

You might want to ask a plastic surgeon who specializes in surgery after weight loss that question, they will know for certain.

kyethra · April 2, 2007

I've read on a couple of websites its best to wait until after pregnancy if possible because a pregnancy can undo the effects of a Tummy Tuck, maybe even muscle repair. So then you would have to do it all over again! Now I imagine it depends how far in the future any possible pregnancy would be and how much any previous pregnancies affected one. I wonder if someone had something like a lower body lift and then got pregnant a few years later if she did a tummy tuck again, how extensive of one would it be? Smaller than one after reaching goal? (cheaper?) Probably depends a lot on the patient. One of these days we are going to perfect male surrogacy. I know it.

Jachut · April 2, 2007

I think overall I'd wait. I know personally, I probably could have had a TT before pregnancy because I'm very tall and dont have very big babies, they were all an average 8lb or so. So I didnt get huge, didnt get stretchmarks, and particularly didnt get the diastasis recti (separation of abdominal muscles). I have lots of room in there for babies. But I didnt know that, you just never know how a pregnancy is going to affect you, all 3 of mine were different in some way or another.

BUT - if you're littler, get a bigger belly, or have bigger babies and get to the point of your abdominal muscles separating (which happens to lots and lots of women) then you could seriously undo the muscle repair and skin work of a TT and require repeat surgery to look as good as it did.

kyethra · April 2, 2007

I think DH and I would be ready to have kids in probably about two years. Ideally I will be at goal then, so waiting until after shouldn't be an issue for me. At least not then. But what if we decide to have a second child? I know I don't want kids who are close together in age because I do not want to have two very small children at the same time. So after I have a kid, if I need a Tummy Tuck or something like that I would consider just getting it depending on how much loose skin I have. The more I have at that point the more likely I would probably be to get it. I could see waiting if I planned on getting pregnant in just a couple of years. But what if I had a kid and had large amounts of loose skin (and if it really bothered me-- of course thats a huge factor, how much it would bother me). Would I want to live with it for several years because I might have another pregnancy? I think that is the sort of thing that is good to talk to the surgeon about. And also depends on cost and personal preference and how much loose skin and so forth bothers a person.