Mommy Makeover
Pregnancy can take a toll on our bodies, affecting our breasts, tummies, legs and more. After nine months—or more, if nursing—you are probably longing for your pre-baby body. Whether you choose a healthy regimen of diet and exercise, minimally invasive cosmetic treatments, cosmetic procedures or all the above, you might also consider a Mommy Makeover to get back in shape.
Mommy Makeovers address a woman’s post pregnancy body issues in a single session surgery (may be staged into more than one operative session) it is a combination of the following:
- Tummy Tuck
- Breast Enhancements – Lift or Augmentation
- Fat Removal with Liposuction
To enhance Mommy Makeover, you can consider a Brazilian Butt Lift.
The results are dramatic and it gives a restored sense of self-confidence because most patients feel like they have their body back.
Good Candidates for Mommy Makeover
- Sagging or loss of volume in the breasts
- Excess skin and fat in the abdominal area
- Fullness or excess skin of the thighs
- Stable weight
- Good overall health
- Realistic expectations
Photo Gallery
Case 1
Case 2
Tummy Tuck
With all the stress we put on our midsections—during pregnancy or with weight gain and loss—it’s no wonder that, as we age, the shape and size of our stomachs change. When diet and exercise don’t provide the results that you want, a surgical procedure like a tummy tuck (or lipoabdominoplasty) may be your best option, assuming you and Dr. Soltero agree that you are a good candidate for this procedure.
A tummy tuck permanently restores firmness to the stomach and removes any loose skin. During the procedure, an incision is made at the pubic bone (your scar, once healed, will be concealed by bathing suits and underwear) through which your plastic surgeon will tighten up the muscles. Small pockets of fat can be removed with liposuction. Once the muscles are tightened— Dr. Soltero will make the muscles as tight as possible so that the stomach will keep its new shape as long as possible—and the excess skin is removed.
Depending on the extent of your particular post-pregnancy concerns, there are a variety of tummy tuck procedures that treat different degrees of muscle and skin laxity. Some procedures are performed with limited incisions and leave shorter scars.
Breast Enhancement
During pregnancy and even into breast-feeding, the breasts are greatly affected by hormonal changes. “Once these hormones decrease, the tissue deflates. Breast enhancement—such as augmenting with implants or a breast lift—can restore shape and size to your breasts, even making them bigger and fuller than they were before you got pregnant.
Types of Breast Enhancements
Breast lift: If you want a long-lasting solution to sagging breasts or loss of breast volume, you may want to consider a breast lift. But just lifting the breast won’t solve the problem in everyone.
If you’re satisfied with the size of your breasts but you just want them to sit a little higher, then a breast lift may be the surgical solution for you. Breasts sag after pregnancy because of stretched-out skin and underlying supporting tissue. Breast appearance can be improved by removing excess skin.
To restore pre-pregnancy perkiness, a breast lift reduces the excess skin and remodels the breast tissue so it can assume a higher position. There are a variety of breast incision placement options, and some women can benefit from newer, more limited incision techniques that allow for smaller and perhaps fewer incisions for less scarring. Regardless of the approach Dr. Soltero deems best for you, it’s important to know that all breast lift surgery results in scars that typically go from the nipple down to the breast crease, and possibly along the breast crease as well.
Breast implants: If you’re happy with the position of your breasts but you’d like them to be a little fuller, implants can help replace the breast tissue that diminishes after having a baby, and may even be able to eliminate the need for a breast lift as long as you have healthy, elastic skin and no excessive drooping. In addition to enhancing breast size, implants can also help restore pre-pregnancy firmness.
Fat Removal
Liposuction alone can remove fat, but it cannot do anything to treat stretched muscles or extra skin. Lansdowne, VA, plastic surgeon Phillip Chang, MD, says, “A tummy tuck takes care of all of the abdominal issues experienced by post-pregnancy women—the stretch marks, excess skin and stretched abdominal wall—and also gives surgeons the ability to bring in the waist like a corset.” That’s why liposuction is often performed in conjunction with the Tummy Tuck to accentuate the waist and add definition to the abdomen. This is a crucial part of any Mommy Makeover. A nicely contoured waist blends into the flattened abdomen in a natural way. Likewise, a narrowed waist complements the proportions created by the breast procedure. The result is a body that looks much like what the patient had prior to her pregnancy or pregnancies.
All liposuction is essentially suction-assisted lipectomy (SAL)—the removal of fat from the body through the assistance of some form of suction. Fat removal involves the use of a cannula (a thin hollow tube that is inserted below the skin) to manually loosen fat. Suction is applied through the cannula to remove the fat from the body with specialized vacuum-powered equipment. For small, localized areas such as the face, or to harvest fat for transfer, suction may be manual, using a large syringe attached to the cannula.
Improvements in SAL include the ability to use smaller cannulas, thereby leading to smaller incisions and more precisely sculpted contours. This is made possible by accompanying SAL with specialized techniques, mainly tumescence and ultrasound assistance.
Brazilian Butt Lift – BBL
If you are unhappy with the appearance of your buttocks, whether due to your size or shape or the presence of sagging skin, can enhance your figure with a butt lift surgery.
A Brazilian butt lift is a butt augmentation procedure that uses liposuction to harvest fat from one or more areas of the body, and inject it into the butt cheeks. It can address a range of concerns, including flat or sagging buttocks, asymmetry, or other disproportions sometimes due to massive weight loss.
An additional benefit of this fat injection method is that you not only get a more shapely buttock, but the area liposuctioned is now much leaner, giving your profile a more sensuous look.