Mommy Makeover

A Mommy Midsection Makeover is a collection of surgical and non-surgical services to restore the shape, health, and musculature definition of a new mother’s abdomen and overall body. While a baby brings about new beginnings that blossom into the joys of motherhood, they also bring cosmetic changes to the inside and outside of your midsection that diet and exercise alone can’t fix. ABS Institute has extensive medical experience and has helped hundreds of mothers feel confident in their bodies once again. By tailoring each procedure to your unique aesthetic needs, ABS Institute can safely and effectively flatten your tummy and achieve better contours for your midsection. If you would like to see how the remarkable team at the ABS Institute in Denver can help you, please schedule a personal consultation or call us at (303) 708-8770.

The Mommy Belly

From first birthdays to first steps to first days of school, the joys of motherhood come with many monumental firsts. But it also comes with other, less endearing firsts: The first time you notice unwanted fat, the first time you see loose skin hang around your tummy, or the first time you spot a bulge in the middle of your abdomen. Though they affect every mother differently, these firsts can be detrimental to your well-being. These conditions include:

Loose, Excess Skin

As the largest organ, our skin continues to grow through childhood and adolescence. With our skin’s complex framework lies an intricate network of collagen and elastin fibers that, when healthy, keep our skin tensile and strong.^[1] Fibroblast cells produce new collagen and elastin to keep the fibers refreshed and elastic. However, like all other cells in our body, fibroblast cells weaken with age. Over time, they produce less collagen and elastin, resulting in loose fibers supporting the internal structure of our skin. With pregnancy, the fetus causes the skin to stretch past its physiological limits. Without a steady supply of collagen and elastin fibers to refresh our skin’s complex network, the skin spreads to ease the internal pressure from the womb. This process often causes the skin to expand around Langer’s lines, resulting in the appearance of stretch marks around the abdomen.^[1] While diet and exercise can better contour your physique, loose, excess skin can veil those hard-earned results. 

Unwanted Abdominal Fat

During pregnancy, mothers experience weight gain – and it’s not all from the baby. It is typical for a healthy mother to gain between 25 and 35 pounds of baby weight during her pregnancy.^[2] Once the baby is born, this weight can linger during lactation and taper off in the coming months. However, as you might have noticed, different areas around your body have accumulated hard-to-lose fat that remains unresponsive to diet and exercise methods. This hard-to-lose fat is subcutaneous fat which the body utilizes differently than other types of adipose tissues. The body uses subcutaneous fat to regulate its internal temperature, protect against dermal infection, and protect vital organs inside the abdomen from external pressures.^[3] Because subcutaneous fat’s role is special, the body sheds it last. So, even with a clean diet and perfectly executed workout regimen, many of our clients are left with pockets of flabby fat tissue around their physique for years to come. 

Separated Muscles

Typically, during the last trimester, the internal pressure from the fetus can be too much for the abdominal muscles to withstand. Vital for just about every movement or stance, the abdominal muscles are two vertical walls of musculature bound together with a connective membrane called the linea alba. The linea alba keeps the muscles together and at the center of our core. When the fetus pushes outward, it can apply undue pressure on the linea alba, causing it to tear and the muscles to separate. After giving birth, the linea alba can repair on its own. But, for many mothers, this is not the case. If the linea alba does not repair on its own, it will result in an apparent bulge in the middle of their midsection.^[4] This condition is called diastasis recti.

Weak Pelvic Floor

For those with diastasis recti, it is common to have weak pelvic floor muscles. Because the abdominal muscles can’t properly engage and keep the pelvic floor active after pregnancy, the pelvic floor muscles begin to weaken and atrophy. These weak muscles typically cause pelvic floor disorders like incontinence.^[5] For many of these mothers, it can seriously affect their overall quality of life.

Surgical Solutions

For those interested in seeing how surgery can restore their abdomen, our solutions include:

Tummy Tuck

To better contour your abdomen by removing excess skin and repairing separated muscles, ABS Institute uses a tummy tuck procedure. During a tummy tuck, ABS Institute make an incision just under your bikini line and removes the excess skin. Then, he repairs the linea alba and returns the separated muscles to their organic orientation. From here, he gently excises the belly button from its resting position. ABS Institute pulls the skin taut and carefully cuts away all overhanging tissue. After making a new hole for the belly button, he sutures it to rest naturally in its new home. He then closes the main incision with sutures and wraps your abdomen in a compression garment. Timeline for recovery will vary from patient to patient – be sure to ask about your recovery timeline during your initial consultation. 

Liposuction

To remove that subcutaneous layer of fatty tissue from trouble spots, ABS Institute use an array of liposculpture techniques and technologies. Liposuction involves a thin tube called a cannula to aspirate fat lobules from their home just under the skin and above the muscles. Because the cannula is only a few millimeters in diameter, the incision required is minimal and barely noticeable once fully healed. 

Non-Surgical Solution: EMSCULPT

For mothers who aren’t interested or might not have room in their schedule for surgery, we recommend EMSCULPT. EMSCULPT is a wearable, non-invasive device that sends high-intensity focused electromagnetic waves (HIFEM) to contract the muscles 20,000 times during 30 minutes. Muscles contract every time they are used either in everyday life or during a rep in an exercise. But, with EMSCULPT, you can achieve more reps than are even possible during a 30-minute ab intensive workout. EMSCULPT is perfect for strengthening abdominal and weak pelvic floor muscles. It is also remarkably effective for patients who underwent a tummy tuck, and are now fully healed. After a tummy tuck, it will be important to regain strength in your core but this may seem impossible after surgery. With EMSCULPT, you can just lay back and let the HIFEM waves strengthen your muscles while burning abdominal fat simultaneously. 

Personal Consultation

ABS Institute is one of the leading experts in body contouring procedures in the nation. The ABS Institute has assisted hundreds of patients in achieving their desired aesthetic physique. The first step is to schedule an initial consultation at our Denver offices. Here, ABS Institute team will perform a brief physical examination and a new patient intake interview. While weight gain is a common occurrence during pregnancy, we ask all of our patients to be at a healthy, stable weight before their procedure. We ask this because any weight gain after these procedures can result in complications and can seriously diminish the procedures’ results. For the same reasons, we ask mothers to be at the end of their family building before undergoing either of these surgical procedures as future pregnancies can dampen results.

FAQ

References

1. Tepole, A. B., Gosain, A. K., & Kuhl, E. (2012). Stretching skin: The physiological limit and beyond. International journal of non-linear mechanics, 47(8), 938–949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnonlinmec.2011.07.006
2. Cantor AG, Jungbauer RM, McDonagh M, et al. Counseling and Behavioral Interventions for Healthy Weight and Weight Gain in Pregnancy: Evidence Report and Systematic Review for the US Preventive Services Task Force. JAMA. 2021;325(20):2094–2109. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.4230 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2780319
3. Kwok, K., Lam, K. & Xu, A. Heterogeneity of white adipose tissue: molecular basis and clinical implications. Exp Mol Med 48, e215 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/emm.2016.5
4. Jessen, M. L., Öberg, S., & Rosenberg, J. (2019). Treatment Options for Abdominal Rectus Diastasis. Frontiers in surgery, 6, 65. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsurg.2019.00065
5. Benjamin, D. R., van de Water, A. T., & Peiris, C. L. (2014). Effects of exercise on diastasis of the rectus abdominis muscle in the antenatal and postnatal periods: a systematic review. Physiotherapy, 100(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physio.2013.08.005