This is the surgery that can reverse some of the cosmetic changes that arise following pregnancy. Fundamentally there is surgery on both the breasts and the abdomen. The breast surgery addresses the loss of skin tone and volume from pregnancy/lactation. This typically involves a lift as well as possibly augmentation with an implant. The abdominal surgery is typically a tummy tuck including fascial repair and/or liposuction. This surgery is not covered by insurance, although I suspect it might be if it were men who carried and nursed babies!

Breast augmentation causes some loss of sensation due to injury of the tiny nerves that serve the skin. If incision is in armpit, the inner arm often loses some sensation. An incision under the breast will cause loss of sensation of a 1 cm strip of skin above the incision. Neither of these incisions is prone to loss of sensation in the areola, and more commonly patients describe increased sensitivity. This hypersensitivity is temporary, and occurs because the nerves in the breast are stretched by the surgery and implant, and the stretched nerve is more irritable until it grows in length (nerves can grow!) and is again at normal tension.…

There are several aspects of healing that can be compromised by exercise. 1. In the first 10 days after surgery, there is a risk of pulling open a blood vessel and getting bleeding into the wound. For this reason, we encourage limited exertion and movement in the surgical area after any surgery. 2. The first three weeks after surgery are critical to the skin/fat layer reattaching to the fascia/muscle layer. If the two layers don’t reconnect, there can be a permanent space that will fill with fluid (Seroma). We recommend use of an abdominal binder as a splint to remind our patients to avoid movement across the abdomen for the…