14 months ago
There are multiple reasons not to consider an abdominoplasty right after giving birth:
- You have just delivered a baby! You will be spending a lot of time nursing your child and you want to be in as good a shape as possible during the early bonding time, rather than recovering from the tummy tuck.
- Your abdominal skin and musculature is stretched out. A lot of the laxity will resolve on its own as your skin regains its natural characteristics. If you were to remove all of the excess skin present right after delivery, you would end up with a much longer tummy tuck scar than you really needed! Wait 6 months to a year and let your body get back to normal. Your surgeon will then have a better understanding of the dynamics of your skin and can give you the optimum result with minimal scar at that time.
- A tummy tuck is a major operation that requires a lot of your body's reserves to heal. Right after delivery, your child really needs that energy (in the form of milk, love, affection, etc.) to start growing. Don't spend it on your stomach.
- You might be thinking that you are already undergoing anesthesia for the c-section, so why not do the tummy tuck? True, but not quite. For almost all c-sections, regional anesthesia techniques (spinal or epidural) are used to help protect your child. The zone of effect of these techniques is generally not adequate for a tummy tuck, so general anesthesia would be needed. As a rule, for 6 weeks after delivery, general anesthetics are performed only for emergency surgery!! (So even the anesthesiologists would think this is a bad idea...)
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