After Pregnancy

Pregnancy can do two things to a woman’s stomach that can only be fixed with surgery: The skin can stretch and simply not have the ability to snap back.  After pregnancies, even the thinnest and fittest of women can have excess or loose skin.  Exercise and dieting is great, but neither tightens skin.  There is, alas, no “skin machine” in the gym.  We work out to strengthen our muscles, heart, and lungs, but we can’t tighten skin through exercise.  

Second, the enlarging uterus puts enormous pressure on the abdominal wall, which can separate the paired rectus muscles that go all the way from the rib cage down to the pubic bone.  When these muscles are separated, it is called a “rectus diastasis.”  Sit-ups can make the muscles stronger, but they won’t fuse them back together.  Once there is a gap, the pressure from inside the abdomen pushes out and can at times make even a thin woman look bloated or pregnant.  Just like the skin, only a tummy tuck can connect those muscles together again.

A swift and safe recovery is critical to enable mothers to return to being with their children.  Dr. Teitelbaum is very conservative and careful with every aspect of his surgery.  He has lectured about the complications of tummy tuck surgery and understands the findings of the latest publications.  While safety is paramount for every surgical patient, Dr. Teitelbaum realizes that there is somehow an extra something that needs to be considered by mothers contemplating surgery.