Mommy Makeover

You should probably wait until your body has fully recovered from childbirth and when you have finished breastfeeding. For most women, this means a year or so after. But you may have stopped nursing much earlier and dropped all your pregnancy-related fat, so surgery may be possible even at six months post. Much will depend on your health and your child’s.

Typically this involves waiting at least 6 months after your pregnancy. This is important because it gives your body some time to recover from your pregnancy so that the skin and tissues can retract, hormone levels can return to normal and body weight stabilizes.

This is a question many women ask themselves within a few months after childbirth. Many women try to plan what they will do to get “back in shape” while they are pregnant, or even before.

After pregnancy, some women are lucky, and they develop little change to the contours of their abdomen and breasts. More often there are changes no amount of diet and exercise can overcome. Skin cannot be exercised. Stretch marks are tears in the fabric of the skin. The rectus muscles with which you do crunches, are almost always separated by the pressure of the womb expansion from the baby( and everything else inside it). The separation is permanent and can even be worsened by abdominal exercises. So DON’T BLAME YOURSELF if no matter what you do it doesn’t seem to “come back”.

There is good news, though. It is now easier and safer than ever to refresh your body. You can have breast augmentation with or without breast lift surgery or tummy tuck surgery as separate procedures, but refinements in anesthesia and surgery techniques have made mommy makeover surgery, which combines breast and body contouring, routine and very safe.

Future pregnancies will reverse some of the effects of your mommy makeover so you are probably best to wait until after having all your children before undergoing the procedure.  However, there are some patients I see who decide later to have more children and there is nothing done at surgery which will prevent a healthy pregnancy.

Of course, I understand that sometimes nature has other things in mind and some pregnancies aren’t planned, but in general, I encourage patients to wait. I want you to be happy with your results and enjoy your physique for many years to come.

The results will almost certainly be long-lasting or semi-permanent if the changes we are making are dealing with issues resulting from pregnancies.  

However, there is also often an element of weight gain and inactivity so there are things you can do to help maintain your improvements. Do your best to maintain a stable weight as additional weight gain will cancel out some of the surgery effects. Avoiding excessive use of alcohol.

Smoking will accelerate the natural aging process. Sun exposure is far more damaging than you can imagine. The skin is not a block of radiation and damage will occur not just to the skin but to deeper tissues as well.

You will likely spend the first night in the surgery centre, after abdominoplasty or most mommy makeovers. Nursing staff will manage your post-op pain, and you will be given prescription medication to manage thereafter. For most patients, pain is far milder than they expect. Since we stopped using surgical drains for abdominoplasty surgery, pain associated has diminished dramatically.

Recovery varies by patient but generally takes several weeks. As your body heals, you won’t be able to complete many of your normal tasks, including anything that involves bending, straining or lifting. 

You should plan to spend a week or two on the couch or in bed, catching up on your favorite television shows or your reading list. However, mobilization is an important part of recovery, and helps prevent certain serious complications: we encourage you to be up and about early and frequently. Light activity, like walking, is encouraged to keep your blood circulating. 

Most mothers want to know when they will be able to pick up their small children. In many cases, only a few days after surgery, carefully picking a small child up can be done, by hugging the child closely. However, if you have a strapping, strong, and active toddler or large infant, this will require much greater caution. Regardless, you will need to recruit someone (usually an understanding spouse, mother or mother-in-law) to help you with cooking, cleaning and childcare as you recover from mommy makeover surgery.

We no longer advise patients to avoid raising their arms above their heads. Early range of motion exercise is started on the day of surgery (see our video on Early Range of Motion Exercises After Breast Augmentation Surgery) and helps reduce pain dramatically. Return to light aerobic exercise begins by 10-14 days and soon upper body resistance exercises are allowed so that by six weeks most patients are back to much of their full routine (planks, “downward dog”, pushups and chest presses must be gradually reintroduced).

Most tummy tuck and mommy makeover patients are beginning to do some core exercises by four weeks, although everyone’s recovery is individual.

As with any scars, they reach a maximum thickness in a few weeks, “plateau” for a while, then begin to fade. The fading—what we call the maturation process—varies from person to person, but runs anywhere from six months to twenty-four months depending on your skin.

The cost of a mommy makeover procedure depends on what surgical procedures are combined, as well as conditions particular to your case. As in much of cosmetic surgery, treatment is individualized. 

We will discuss your options with a formal consultation. You will be provided with a fee quotation as a part of the patient consultation process and, if desired, there are financing options.

The advantages of having combined procedures are reduced costs, and only one overall recovery period, and only one time lost from work, family and social life.