Having a baby can change your body in many ways. Once women are done having children, they sometimes turn to different forms of cosmetic surgery to get their pre-baby body back. A tummy tuck is one such procedure that has been used for decades. When diet and exercise simply aren’t enough to help you lose weight or get your stomach to go back to the way it was before you were pregnant, a tummy tuck can handle things like excess skin and torn abdominal muscles (diastasis recti).
Why Women Have a Tummy Tuck after Pregnancy
Upon getting pregnant, a woman’s abdominal area will begin to stretch and expand as the months go on. After delivery of a baby, the lower abdominal area can appear very saggy despite diet and exercise. Excess skin may be the culprit, but diastasis recti can also be an issue. This is when the right side of the abdominal muscles and the left side tear apart from one another as the uterus expands.
Pregnancy hormones can also thin out the tissues on your stomach, making it stretch easier. It’s normal to have a slight widening along the middle of your stomach, but anything larger than 2 centimeters is a concern. Risk factors include other women in your family experiencing this issue or having poor muscle tone in the abdomen prior to pregnancy.
How Soon after Pregnancy Can You Get a Tummy Tuck?
It’s ideal to give your body a little bit of time to see how it bounces back after a pregnancy. Most cosmetic surgeons and medical professionals that you wait a minimum of six months before scheduling a consultation. If you’re breastfeeding, you’ll want to wait another six months after you’ve stopped.
While you might feel like you’re back to your normal self just a couple of months after you’ve given birth, there are tissues deep down in your abdomen that have stretched and ripped to a great degree. It takes six months to see what kind of healing can occur on its own. This is also the ideal amount of time for hormone levels to adjust back to normal, so your skin isn’t as stretchy as it was when you were pregnant.
You’ll want to make sure that you have the ability to relax and heal after your tummy tuck. This is major surgery, and you won’t be able to pick up your baby or do any kind of heavy lifting for a minimum of six weeks, but it may be more. Most new mothers do a lot of carrying their baby around, moving up and down to change diapers and bathe the baby, etc. It takes about six months for you to develop your normal routine, and you can figure out how to make your tummy tuck recovery work.
Tummy Tuck after C Section
If you’ve given birth via C-section, you’ll need to wait six to twelve months before you have a tummy tuck performed. You should allow everything to settle down from an emotional and physical standpoint. It will take some time for your skin and muscles to snap back into shape. If your body is still changing and you have it surgically altered, you can’t always predict what the outcome is going to look like.
How Can a Tummy Tuck Help You?
Tummy tucks are used to help correct medical conditions like diastasis recti after childbirth, but it’s also a procedure that can be used to boost your confidence and self-esteem. Most new mothers know what it feels like to have a completely different body postpartum.
Nothing seems quite as tight anymore. The body that you once had now seems to sag a bit and doesn’t feel like your own. A tummy tuck can bring your abdomen back to how it looked before you were pregnant. You’ll feel youthful and healthy again.
Your goal after giving birth may be to get back to your pre-pregnancy weight. A tummy tuck will help you shed some pounds, but it’s also a great way to drop those last few pounds that you can’t seem to get rid of on your own. It’s a great starting point for a healthy diet and exercise plan moving forward.
Does Insurance Cover a Tummy Tuck after Pregnancy?
It’s very unlikely that your insurance company will approve any kind of coverage for a tummy tuck on its own. Even with diastasis recti and the separation of your abdominal muscles, you’ll still have to cover the expense yourself.
What your insurance may cover however, is something called a panniculectomy. This is when a hanging flap of skin is removed from below your abdomen, around your waistline. It’s not a tummy tuck however, and the skin above that area will remain in place.
Consult a Tummy Tuck Expert
If you’re interested in learning more about a tummy tuck and would like to schedule an appointment for an upcoming consultation, reach out to the staff here at Boutinic Aesthetics. We are an experienced team of professionals that would be happy to answer any questions that you have. Together we can come up with a game plan to help you get your pre-pregnancy body back.
If you’ve recently given birth, we encourage you to wait a little bit in order to let your body heal. Once approximately six months has gone by, this is the perfect time to give us a call.
