First, congratulations on your new baby! I trust that everyone is healthy and happily getting acquainted! At 2 months postpartum, your tissues have not yet stabilized and returned to a baseline condition, especially if you are still breastfeeding, as hormonal influences may still remain. Thus, my first advice to you is to bond with your new baby, and be patient to allow your tissues and body to stabilize. This often takes 6 months or longer. While I am very sensitive to the sudden and drastic changes that a new young mother's body goes through, especially with her first baby, and the near-panic that many ladies feel about trying to reverse some of these changes, I can tell you that in the long run you will be best served by trying to temper the emotional part of this and remain fact and evidence based and take a reasonable course. Furthermore, if you are even thinking that you may want another baby in the future, I would seriously recommend that you hold off on any plans for a tummy tuck. This is not a small operation, and while it would pose no particular health or safety risk to you or your baby if you were to become pregnant after a tummy tuck, it would very likely alter the results and necessitate a second similar procedure, when for most people one in a lifetime is plenty! To answer your first question, yes, you do have laxity and stretch marks above your belly button, and this would be an indication for a full tummy tuck. That operation would help to a large degree with the laxity of the skin, but the stretch marks would likely still remain once they are stable, with the exception of those areas of stretch-marked skin that were actually removed with the tummy tuck. Most people that have stretch marks extending that high above the belly button still have them after surgery, but they are stretched more taught and they are repositioned lower on the abdomen, hopefully below the waistband or bikini. But to more specifically address your situation, I might consider a couple of the alternatives to tummy tuck if I were you, especially if I thought there was any chance I might have another baby, no matter how far in the future. One option that is gaining more and more traction is radiofrequency tissue tightening. There are a few devices on the market now, at least here in the US, which do a very impressive job at tightening lax tissues, improving textures of the skin, and combined with some liposuction when indicated, decreasing the bulk of the abdomen. In many instances, this can completely obviate the need for a formal tummy tuck. It certainly wouldn't burn the bridge for you to get a tummy tuck in the future too, in the case that you were unsatisfied with such a procedure. You just have to bear in mind that these devices are relatively new and there is a learning curve for the surgeon involved, so you will need to identify someone who has access to such a device and some technical expertise in its use. But, if you could locate someone who could provide you with such an option, it would be worth the effort in your case. I have seen some very dramatic and impressive results with this, and the medical literature has validated it with good scientific studies. The one thing I want to clarify is that this is not laser, it is not laser liposuction or laser assisted anything - it is radiofrequency, using electrical energy. This is much different, and according to the medical studies, much safer and more effective. While the devotees of such laser technologies want you to believe that laser works for tightening, it is a very different type of heat generated in the tissues, it is not as specific or well controlled, and it is either ineffective or too risky to be justified. In any event, my advice to you is to wait a little while longer to allow your body and your tissues to fully recover, and then try to find someone who offers these more minimally invasive options for body contouring and tissue tightening. I would put formal tummy tuck way down on the list of options right now, based upon what you have said thus far. Best of luck to you.
