If your abdomen has become saggy due to factors like weight fluctuations, genetics, pregnancy, or any other reason, you can consult with me to explore your treatment options. For most patients with a saggy abdomen, I recommend the tummy tuck surgery. However, I have also encountered many patients who assume that the tummy tuck results are permanent and nothing, not even pregnancy, can affect the results.
Let me tell you that the results of the tummy tuck are long-lasting as long as you are careful and avoid certain things after the procedure. One of the main things I tell my patients to avoid after the tummy tuck is pregnancy. Pregnancy can have adverse effects on the results achieved with the tummy tuck. You want to undergo the tummy tuck surgery to get rid of the saggy abdomen and restore your firmer, youthful tummy. But just as pregnancy has made your belly saggy before the surgery, it can do the same after the surgery.
During the tummy tuck procedure, I restore your firmer abdomen by tightening the separated and loose abdominal wall muscles, besides removing the excess fat and skin. Now, when you get pregnant after the surgery, your abdomen will expand as the baby grows. The expansion will stretch your abdominal wall muscles and skin and even trigger the development of stubborn fat pockets in your abdomen. The skin would be stretched beyond a certain threshold, after which the elastin will be damaged. The skin elastin is responsible for keeping your stomach firmer.
When the skin elastin becomes weak and the abdominal wall muscles become separated, your abdomen will become loose and saggy again. It will make you appear aesthetically unwelcoming and aged. For this reason, I tell all my tummy tuck patients to undergo the procedure only after they have no more plan to get pregnant. If you want to get pregnant, you should postpone your plan to undergo the tummy tuck for now.
Some patients ignore this advice and get pregnant after the surgery. As a result, their abdomen becomes saggy. To treat the condition, I tell them to undergo the tummy tuck again. To avoid the additional cost, downtime, and discomfort involved in undergoing a tummy tuck for the second time, you should undergo the tummy tuck after your family is complete and you have no intention to get pregnant again.