Tummy Tuck: Prices, Photos, Reviews, Info, Q&A

Tummy tucks are recommended after child bearing is complete to ensure the most predictable and lasting results. However, it is safe to have future pregnancies after the procedure but the results will be altered to some degree. If preganancy is in your near future it’s best to wait.

While most women logically wait until they are through with having children before they have their tummy-tuck, it is certainly possible to become pregnant after tummy tuck. Your abdominal skin and muscles will once again stretch to accommodate the growing fetus and uterus, as they do with any pregnancy. While the new pregnancy may result in some looser skin and abdominal wall afterwards, in my experience my patients who have become pregnant after their tummy-tuck have not needed a re-do surgery. This may not always be the case, however.

In general, it is advisable to wait until a patient is done having children before they undergo any major abdominoplasty and body sculpting. A pregnancy post-surgery can stretch out the abdominal wall again, and with teh pregnancy weight gain, it may undo some of the sculpting changes that you have gone through. If a patient does have the surgery and wants to get pregnant after tummy tuck again, then I generally ask them to wait a year.

Optimally, you should wait till after you are dome having children before having a tummy tuck. That being said, many women have had a tummy tuck and successfully had pregnancies without consequence to the baby. If your current abdominal contour is affecting your quality of life or sense of being, maybe discuss performing a lesser abdominal procedure like a skin only partial tummy tuck with your surgeon to address your needs. You may save cost, definitely recovery, and in the long run avoid possibly repairing your muscle again in the future.

In general I advise patients to delay their tummy tuck until they are done having children. It’s not dangerous to your health or that of the baby to get pregnant after a tummy tuck, but you will undo at least some of the improvement. I have had a few patients inadvertently get pregnant after their tummy tucks and they did surprisingly well. Their stomachs did worsen after the pregnancy, but still were not nearly as bad as they were before the tummy tuck.

If you are planning to be pregnant in the future, I would wait on tummy tuck. Although you can safely get pregnant 3-4 months after having undergone tummy tuck, pregnancy will undo benefits from the tummy tuck surgery.

Tummy tuck is a procedure to bring back your core muscles together (correcting the diastasis recti) and removing the excess skin and fat. As you know from your first pregnancy, your muscle and skin will stretch during the pregnancy. Why go through the pain, expense, and recovery again?

My answer is no. Eventhough, i have had patients who have successfully gone through pregnancy very well.

The issue that i have is that during a routine tummy tuck the internal muscles a tightened. and sometimes even other muscles to obtain a more tapered waist. This can possibly affect the pregnancy in the expansion of the abdomen. This could affect the outcome, therefore i advise against it.

If on the other hand the muscles are not tightened then this, in my opion is medically fine. This is done with massive weight loss patients that are planning to hve children. I have don this on several occassion.

Why go through the expense, risk (minimal, but real), and recovery of an abdominal tightening procedure only to have it all stretched out with a possible future pregnancy? Most of us have had patients in this situation, and if in fact it is only a theoretical possibility, and you really want to have a slimmer and tightened abdomen (but still want to maintain the safe potential for later pregnancy), there is a variation in the procedure I perform.

Basically, I do a “standard” tummy tuck, with the same incisions, skin removal, umbilical transposition, drain placement, and skin closure. The plication (suturing the abdominal muscle fascia together in the midline to re-tighten the abdominal wall).

I usually do with patients who are finished having babies uses a long-acting dissolving stitch from breast bone to pubic bone interspersed with triple figure of eight monofilament non-absorbable sutures for permanent strength.

Subsequent pregnancy COULD cause those permanent sutures to tear through the muscular fascia and cause a hernia or hernias. Thus, when I know in advance a patient MAY be considering a future pregnancy after tummy tuck (but still wants to proceed with the surgery), I use only absorbable sutures, so the abdominal wall, when healed after this kind of plication, can stretch without tearing as easily.

Of course, if you do meet a new partner, have another baby, and stretch your abdomen again, you will require more surgery to restore your abdomen to a tighter state.