Patients should be monitored very carefully in the few days and weeks after surgery. At the first sign of any concern you should contact your plastic surgeon's office immediately. I would strongly recommend using an ointment with antibacterial properties, such as any over-the-counter antibiotic ointment (e.g. generic ‘triple antibiotic ointment’) instead of Vaseline. Most plastic surgeons use permanent sutures to tighten the abdominal wall, and some of those sutures are immediately adjacent to your new umbilicus. Umbilical stalk skin necrosis means that the barrier between these permanent sutures and the outside world may be breached, creating the possibility of internal suture infection. Antibacterial ointment will not only reduce the likelihood of an infection, but will also promote the healing of the umbilical stalk if some of the stalk is still viable (i.e. it has enough blood flow to survive).The blood flow to the umbilical stalk and the blood flow to the abdominoplasty skin flap are completely different. So umbilical stalk necrosis does not mean you are at high risk for abdominoplasty skin flap necrosis. If the skin of your lower abdomen just above your suprapubic abdominoplasty scar is pink and you are ten to fourteen days postop, then there is no need to worry about skin flap necrosis.The best course of action is local wound care as mentioned above and frequent visits to your plastic surgeon. Regarding the long–term appearance of your new umbilicus: the sutures through the skin adjacent to your belly button will create permanent suture marks if they are not removed soon. Ask your surgeon if that can be done in order to avoid a pattern of dot-like scars around your new umbilicus which will make it look like a surgical belly button, not a natural belly button. It is possible to place umbilical skin sutures so that they pass through the dermis only (and not the epidermis) on the abdominoplasty skin flap side of the umbilical closure.You may ultimately require some form of revisional surgery once the belly button wound has healed, but in most cases a definitive secondary procedure cannot be done for at least 6 months or so. So you will need to be patient, take good care of the wound, and see your doctor frequently as this issue evolves.