Hi! I am a 38 year old woman who was banded last Aug. I am now 320 lbs, down from 360. My husband and I are thinking of trying for a 4th child, if we can loose more weight by next spring. My question is this: I am pretty sure a further large weight loss will leave me with a significant pannus. At what point should I look into getting it removed? Do I wait until a year after the hypothetical child is born? Obviously my age is an issue if we are going to be trying to get pregnant. Would a pregnancy ruin any abdominal work that I had done beforehand?

I don't know about your particular issues, but everything that I've read is that you really should be done having babies before you have abdominal plastic surgery. Now, most of the research I've been doing is on a straight tummy tuck . . . so your procedures may be different.

I've also read that while you CAN get pregnant after a TT, you run the risk of ruining the TT -- as such, it is money down the drain. Most of the research I've found concludes that there is no risk to the baby on a post-TT pregnancy, but there is conflicting "opinion" on that matter.

There is a board out there where I've done a lot of reading and it's specifically for post-plastic surgery pregnancies. I bet if you googled it, it'd come up.

I'm not planning on getting pregnant again, and I am planning on having a tummy tuck just as soon as I can afford it. Like, yesterday would have been great had I had the money! LOL! But I wanted to do the research on the offchance that I did become pregnant again. I don't take the pill, so we've had a couple of scares. (I already have 3 kids under the age of 5 . . . I don't really want more).

I would talk to your band surgeon, your primary care doctor, and get some opinions from plastic surgeons, too.

Good luck! And congratulations on your weight loss thus far!

LJM just had a baby and she had a TT last year.

I myself plan to wait till after having kids (plan to have 2 total) before looking into getting a TT.

I don't know how it would have been different, but my pannis has deflated and now that I am pregnant it dangles from the pregnant belly. It's not a big deal! I think it affects the 'cute pregnant belly' thing, but I don't care. I have not developed any stretch marks, and I attribute that to all the loose skin I had. I am 34 weeks along, so I'm almost to the finish line.

I had gone from 330lb to 212lb when I got pregnant.

I haven't had PS yet but everything I need to get fixed in my abdomen area is from having babies more than from being fat. This includes the flap of skin between my breasts and belly button that is caused by muscle separate and my panus, which started after my first c-section.

If I were still having kids, I'd be worried to get PS and then have all this stuff come back.