Pregnancy causes the body to experience some major changes. If you suffer from extra tissue, sagging skin and stretch marks after having children, our mommy makeover in Houston can restore your body to its pre-baby shape.
What can a mommy makeover do for you?
Our Houston mommy makeover is not a single surgery. Rather, it’s a custom blend of procedures that are designed to recapture your pre-pregnancy figure. As such, your personalized mommy makeover can help you address:
- Stretch marks + belly flab + loose skin with a tummy tuck
- Sagging, drooping breasts with a breast lift
- Pockets of stubborn fat with liposuction
- Loss of breast volume + shape with a breast augmentation
- Heavy + cumbersome breasts with a breast reduction
The ideal time for your mommy makeover is once you are finished having children and at a stable weight. Any future weight fluctuations or pregnancies could adversely affect your results.
The Main Event
What to expect during mommy makeover surgery
If you decide to move forward with your mommy makeover, your surgical experience will be completely customized based on the procedures you’re having done. With that said, the vast majority of mommy makeovers include three key parts: a tummy tuck, a breast surgery and a body contouring procedure. These surgeries are performed under intravenous anesthesia along with nerve blocks to relieve postoperative pain.
Liposuction is done to address isolated pockets of fat throughout the face and body. Among our mommy makeover clients, common treatment areas include the abdomen, hips, thighs, breasts, buttocks and upper arms.
To perform this portion of your procedure, Dr. Wiener will inject a special solution to numb the area and swell your fat cells so that they are easier to isolate and remove. He will then use a cannula to break up and suction out the unwanted fat, before closing the incisions with sutures.
Whether your post-baby breasts are drooping or deflated, too large or too small, it is very likely that breast surgery will be part of your mommy makeover experience. Depending on your needs, Dr. Wiener will perform a reduction, an augmentation, a lift, or some combination of these three surgeries in order to sculpt full, light and feminine breasts that fit your body beautifully.
Because the stomach is heavily affected by pregnancy, a tummy tuck is a very common procedure to have done during your mommy makeover in Houston. It involves an incision just above the pubic area, through which excess fat and skin are removed and lax muscles are tightened. If you’re addressing a substantial amount of extra volume, you may also need your naval to be repositioned or recreated, which will involve an additional incision near your belly button.
The Recovery
What to expect after mommy makeover surgery
Our mommy makeover involves some significant changes to your body – so there can be a fairly substantial healing process involved depending on the number of procedures you had performed. With that said, here’s a general guideline of what to expect after surgery:
Gallery
IMAGINE
THE CHANGE
Swelling + Discomfort
These side effects are normal and usually improve within one week. In the meantime, rest often and walk lightly around the house to promote blood flow and healing.
Time Off From Work
Most of our Houston patients can return to work and their normal daily routine within two weeks of having their mommy makeover.
Gradual Results
It takes time for your results to appear due to swelling, bruising and other post-surgical side effects. It may take up to several months for your final results to emerge.
Dr. Wiener has a reputation for providing the best mommy makeover Houston has available – and that’s in part due to his dedication to discreet scars. He will strategically place your incisions in areas where they can be easily hidden with clothing. Although your scar will remain red for about nine months, it will fade in time.
Candidates for a Mommy Makeover
A “mommy makeover” is a customized set of procedures to help women who have children return their bodies to a pre-baby condition – or even better. To be a candidate, you should be done having children, as a subsequent pregnancy will once again stretch skin and tissue. You should be in good general health before undergoing surgery.
Certain medications may need to be stopped prior to your procedure. Your full medical history will be reviewed and various tests performed to ensure the safety of the procedure. If you suffer from any of the following conditions caused by pregnancy and childbirth, you may be a good candidate:
- Saggy tummy skin and tissue
- Droopy, stretched abdominal skin
- Separated abdominal muscles
- Deflated-looking breasts
- Saggy breasts
Benefits of a Mommy Makeover
Imagine restoring your body to its pre-baby condition – the main benefit of a mommy makeover. While motherhood is one of life’s most rewarding experiences, the body can suffer extensive changes after pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. Many women feel unhappy with the appearance post-baby body, and dream of restoring the firm, taut, youthful look they had before having children. Our range of surgical and non-surgical procedures can achieve that dream. The procedures vary person-to-person, and may include:
- Tummy tuck
- Thigh lift
- Breast lift or breast lift with augmentation
- Breast reduction
- Liposuction
- Lower body lift
Liposuction in a Mommy Makeover
A woman’s body is programmed to store fat during pregnancy. The purpose is to provide nutrients for the baby should food become scarce – which is not an issue in modern life. The fat is deposited on the thighs, buttocks, tummy, and all other areas of the body. After childbirth, most women breastfeed the baby, which has an added effect of reducing weight – but not always.
Whether you breastfed your baby or not, you may have been left with excess fat on the tummy, love handles, thighs, and buttocks, and look less trim and fit than you did before you had children. This excess fat will need to be resolved, and one of the most effective ways is to use liposuction as one part of a mommy makeover to resculpt your body and create a look that once again looks youthful, fresh, and trim.
Lower Body Lift
A lower body lift addresses sagging skin and tissue on the lower section of the body, including:
- Abdomen
- Buttocks
- Groin
- Outer thighs
When tissue and skin has been stretched too far, it will not return to a tight, firm condition. Only a surgical procedure can resolve this condition – diet and exercise will not. When the skin has retained a high elasticity, liposuction can remove excess fat, but if the skin has lost its elastic, firm quality, the excess can be removed and tightened with a lower body lift.
Breast Reduction After Having Children
When the breasts are large, they are uncomfortable and unwieldy – and pregnancy and breastfeeding often exacerbate the condition. While some women’s breasts return to their original size, others are left with large breasts they don’t appreciate. Women with breasts that appear droopy, saggy, and cause irritation, rashes, or discomfort often opt to undergo breast reduction surgery to reshape the breasts to create a balanced, youthful figure.
This procedure is performed after your breasts have returned to a stable size, typically about three months after halting breastfeeding, or if you did not breastfeed, three months after giving birth. The procedure addresses sagging, drooping, excess fat and tissue, and repositions the nipples so that the breasts are located at a more youthful position on the chest, round, plump and youthful once again.
Should My Mommy Makeover Include a Lower Body Lift?
Excess skin and tissue around the midsection don't affect the abdomen alone. You may notice that the middle area of your body, including your hips, lower back, buttocks, and thighs, have become soft and saggy after you've lost your pregnancy weight. This excess cannot be addressed through lifestyle. Loose tissue is loose. There is only one way to deal with it, and that is to remove it using expert techniques. If you've got significant laxity in multiple areas around your waist and legs, you may benefit from a lower body lift as a part of your Mommy Makeover.
The lower body lift involves an incision that stretches around the belt line. You may have additional incisions as well, depending on the various procedures you select. For instance, if your lower body lift includes a thigh lift, you will have incisions in the inner area of your upper legs. If you have excess fatty tissue, the lower body lift aspect of your Mommy Makeover may begin with liposuction. This sculpts the underlying tissue pattern before the doctor tightens your muscle and skin.
You may be a good candidate for a lower body lift if you have significant laxity in the lower middle of your body, from your abdomen to your knees, front and back. This is a common area for women to stretch and hold excess fat well after delivering children. In addition to having excess tissue, you must also be in good physical health, confirmed through your consultation, examination, and relevant medical tests. It's important that you can safely undergo surgery and recover from your procedure. Your overall health also contributes to your long-term Mommy Makeover results.
Can a Tummy Tuck Remove Excess Fat? Why Would I Need Liposuction, Too?
Abdominoplasty does remove some excess tissue. The primary objective of the tummy tuck, however, is to sculpt a tighter, flatter midsection. If you have a layer of fat that's hanging on to your belly after pregnancy, this sits on top of your muscle tissue. Your tummy tuck will tighten what is beneath that layer of fat. This is why Dr. Wiener may recommend liposuction as an ancillary procedure to enhance the outcome of your Mommy Makeover.
How Much Fat Can Liposuction Remove?
Liposuction is one of the most common plastic surgery procedures. It is designed to remove fatty tissue from one or more areas in a single procedure. That said, it's important to understand that liposuction, even alongside a tummy tuck, is not intended to make a significant impact on your weight. Dr. Wiener performs liposuction within the stated safety guidelines, removing up to five liters of fat at one time. This volume limit involves all treatment areas, not just one. This means that, if you have multiple areas you want to sculpt through liposuction, your treatment plan may be staged to perform liposuction at different times.
In general, liposuction can result in a five- to an eight-pound reduction in your weight. From where we stand, we're looking at the mirror and your clothing size, as well as your personal confidence level, as a more direct reflection of liposuction success than the number on your scale.
Schedule a Consultation
Dr. Thomas Wiener in Houston TX specializes in Mommy Makeovers and can answer any questions or alleviate any concerns you may have about this procedure. Before making that choice, we invite you to contact our office by completing an online form or calling us at (281) 488-5795 to speak with someone at our office. We look forward to hearing from you!
