Lifting my Baby After Tummy Tuck and Plastic Surgery

Ten pound babies can be lifted after one week. Heavier ones have to wait for 4 to 6 weeks. No need to push it and risk breaking deep sutures. Your husband can lift them for a while!

Dear Leiav, My first reaction is that with the planned surgery you're limiting both your arms and your abdomen and to a slight degree your legs from behaving normally. Add lifting a 7 month old in and out of a crib and you're adding significant strain to your incisions and run a higher risk of complications, like wound dehiscence, hematoma or fluid buildup while prolonging your overall recovery. I used to do a lot of multiple procedures like you describe and have since become more... more

The main thing you want to avoid is heavy, vigorous, or too quick/violent movements. In the early weeks, it can lead to hemorrhage, and in the long term, it could cause the sutures to rip through your tissues, leading to an unhappy result. I tell my patient > 10# for 6 weeks. Your doctor may have a different regiment, and I would follow it. Don't want to mess up the investment in you!

While a plastic surgeon advises a patient to refrain from heavy lifting after surgery, it is also prudent to regain normal function as soon as possible. Lifting a twenty pound object after surgery may be difficult as the added strain may cause you to lose balance, or even drop something that you are lifting. Moreover, you may pull a muscle or a suture line that is vital to outcome. Lifting a twenty pound child is even more difficult because it is a sustained strenuous task. Although your... more

Combining those three operations may extend your recovery time. This may make it more difficult for you to safely lift your child after one week. Lifting objects heavier than 20 lbs can compromise the rectus repair in the first few weeks post-operatively. At two weeks this repair is actually at its weakest and gains strength thereafter. In addition, in my San Francisco area practice we remind patients that children are just weight - they can wiggle and squirm causing you to need to... more

Generally most tummy tucks involve muscle repairs (similar to a hernia) that require a minimum of 6 weeks to gain sufficient scar tissue to reinforce the repair. Most general surgeons advise patients to wait at least 3-4 weeks before resuming activities. I suggest similar guidelines to my patients. However, it really depends on your tummy tuck ; if you don't have a muscle repair, this restriction is not as important. If you do have to lift avoid bending over and straining. Have your... more

I ask patients to treat their abdomens post-abdominoplasty as if they had a hernia repair recognizing they won't gain full healing strength for 8 weeks. By being careful and judicious in their lifting of children, I have never had a patient harm their repair in 20+ years. But this requires being very careful! I often do breast lifts and tummy tucks together and the breast lift recovery is always the lesser of the two and isn't really a factor when it comes to lifting. I will not ever do... more

A tummy tuck is a very popular and effective technique to recontour the abdomen. Patients undergoing this procedure should consider the significant recovery process. In our practice, we routinely tell our patients that they should live no more than 5 pounds for the first 4 to 6 weeks after their surgery. This includes children. Lifting a large weight, such as a child, can put undue tension and stress on your abdominal repair. This can have the effect of loosening the muscle or widening... more

I usually have patients wait about 3 -6 weeks until they can perform heavy lifting.

Your doctor is right, you probably would not damage any of the operation by lifting a small child.  However, make certain you don't drop your child if you encounter pain as the abdominal muscles rebel at first.