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If you are interested in cosmetic surgery to restore your body to its pre-pregnancy condition, contact Dr. Lauren Greenberg at our Palo Alto practice today to schedule a consultation.
Lauren Greenberg, M.D.
BOARD CERTIFIED, American Board of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Plastic Surgery
750 Welch Road, Suite 117
Palo Alto, CA 94304
p / 650.617.9907
f / 650.617.9909
Post-Pregnancy Cosmetic Surgery in Palo Alto
Congratulations on having a baby. It is truly a blessing, and one of the best journeys I have ever taken. As you have undoubtedly discovered, having babies takes a toll on your body, particularly your abdomen, breasts, and skin. Helping women regain their pre-pregnancy bodies is an area of particular interest for me. Most of my Northern California patients are women in their late 30s and early 40s, and much of what I fix is what babies ( as well as time, gravity, and life) have caused. I feel strongly that our bodies change more than those of our mothers did. Particularly here in the Bay Area, we have babies at an older age, we gain more weight, and we breastfeed. What makes us proud in our Palo Alto playgroups is a healthy child. Our own bodies take second place.
- Breast Enhancement
- Small Breasts that are Not Drooping
- Small Breasts and Drooping Skin
- The Right Breast Volume, but Drooping Breasts
- Large Breast Volume and Drooping Breasts
- Body Contouring and Correction
- Mommy Makeover Before and After Photos
- Excess Fat and Good Skin Tone
- Excess Fat and Poor Skin Tone
- No fat. Poor skin tone
- Grey Zone
Post-pregnancy surgery should not be done until you have allowed time for your body to fully recover. It is amazing to see what time, exercise, and those healthy Bay Area habits can do to improve things. But there are typical changes that I see among new moms, many of which cannot be fixed by exercise, creams, or sheer will. Patients in Palo Alto are well educated. My goal is to help you evaluate your choices and determine your best option together.
Plastic surgery after pregnancy is not needed by every woman. But for many, it allows us a way to reclaim our bodies after having babies. The benefits to self-esteem and sexuality can be great.
Breast Enhancement
The best type of corrective breast surgery for you depends on what changes have occurred and what goals you have. If you are a woman who has:
Small Breasts that are Not Drooping
Breast augmentation is the ideal choice for you. Saline or silicone implants are a great way to give you volume back, lift the breasts, and give some tension back to the breast tissue. A common story I hear is, “I was happy with my breasts… maybe I wished they were a little bigger. Then I had kids and I lost what little volume I had.” A breast augmentation is a great way to correct this. It is a simple surgery with a small scar.
Small Breasts and Drooping Skin
Breast augmentation is still a good choice for you. The issue in women who have ptosis (a fancy way of saying loose or drooping skin) is that a breast implant may not correct the drooping by itself. You may need to do a breast lift, or mastopexy, to tighten the skin and breast tissue. Many women fall into this gray zone, and I find this a difficult area to advise. You need to be honest with yourself when having your breasts enhanced. How full do you want to be? How perky do you want to be? What amount of scar is okay? Your need to do a formal lift may depend on whether we put the breast implant in front of or behind the muscle, what volume of augmentation you desire, and your skin tone.
There are two basic kinds of breast lifts: the periareolar lift, where the scar is just around the areola, and the vertical breast lift, where you have a lollipop scar. (I no longer perform the lift with the longer anchor scar.)
The Right Breast Volume, but Drooping Breasts
A breast lift is the choice for you. When you have enough breast tissue, the best option is the vertical breast lift. This type of mastopexy allows me the maximum ability to reshape and lift the breast. A small implant can be added at the same time if you desire more fullness in the cleavage area.
Large Breast Volume and Drooping Breasts
Breast reduction is the choice for you. I use the vertical breast reduction technique.
Body Contouring and Correction
The right body procedure for you will depend on what issues you have and where they are. The two basic factors are fat and skin tone. Everyone hears about watching weight gain with pregnancy and I do think there is a correlation between gaining more than just “baby weight” and having a higher permanent weight after pregnancy. I hear many women say, “After my children I went back to exercising and eating well. I just can’t lose the last 10 pounds.” For many of these women, surgery can help them regain their pre-pregnancy baseline.
The other issue after having children is loosening of the abdominal skin and muscles. The muscle loosening, called diastasis, happens along the center of the abdomen. It is the reason you can’t “suck it in” as tightly as you used to, and you may notice that your belly is flat when you lay down, but pooches out when you stand up. Some of this muscle loosening can be corrected with sit-ups and other abdominal exercise. Some cannot be corrected without surgery.
The degree of skin loosening depends on genetic skin tone, how big you got, how many times you’ve been pregnant, and other factors. These can result in hanging skin, stretch-marks, or just stretchy loose skin. My sister-in-law calls that loose skin “the muffin top” and I call it “the bloop.” It is the annoying skin that hangs over the waist of your jeans, even though your jeans are not too tight. This happens in thin women as well as more full-figured ones. The issue is one of poor skin tone. Unfortunately there is no cream or exercise to improve skin tone or elasticity. The only way we currently have to tighten skin is to remove the excess.
So what are the options? Liposuction, abdominoplasty, and mini-abdominoplasty offer solutions to each of these problems. Abdominoplasty, or a tummy tuck, is a two layer approach that tightens the underlying muscle diastasis and the overlying loose skin. Mini-abdominoplasty usually addresses the skin only and a smaller amount of skin is removed, leaving no scar around the belly button. If you have:
Mommy Makeover Before and After Photos
Excess Fat and Good Skin Tone
Your optimal choice is liposuction.
Excess Fat and Poor Skin Tone
Your optimal choice is an abdominoplasty, or tummy tuck. This can be combined with liposuction on other areas of your body to give you a smooth, natural contour. I strongly prefer to address the entire body to keep the curves looking natural. When your body is affected in multiple areas, it is best to treat all of those areas together, so as not to look oddly shaped or “operated on.”
No Fat and Poor Skin Tone
Alas, this is a hard one. This is purely a unique effect of pregnancy caused by stretching of the skin. There is currently no way to tighten skin without removing the excess. This is done by performing a mini-abdominoplasty.
Grey Zone
This last category is the “grey zone.” I see many women who have excess fat and some loose skin, but their skin is not so loose as to require a full abdominoplasty. This tends to be the category where women who have the “muffin top,” or the stretched out skin near the belly button, fit in. It’s enough to be annoying, but sometimes not enough to warrant the scar that will be left by an abdominoplasty. These patients tend to choose liposuction alone or liposuction with a mini-abdominoplasty. There is no right answer for everyone.
In summary, determining the best course for you requires a careful evaluation of your goals and the realities of what can be done, which I go over in great detail during your consult with me in my Palo Alto office. The surgery is usually done in one of two local outpatient, fully-accredited surgery centers in Palo Alto or Menlo Park. I do frequently combine surgeries. We have busy lives in Palo Alto and the Bay Area. Many of us work. We all have children. There are benefits to combining surgeries, such as being under anesthetic only once, being in recovery only once, and some cost savings. You will need someone else to help you with your children immediately after the surgery. I jokingly say this is the only way some of us get any “mommy vacation time,” and the more you take it easy immediately after surgery, the faster you will get better. As this is elective surgery, this should only be done safely. With some larger surgeries an overnight stay is recommended, and for some a two-stage procedure may be necessary.