What Is The Tummy Tuck Waiting Period After A Pregnancy?

You’ve started your family and you’ve had a couple of beautiful children. It’s a wonderful and great feeling to be a mom. But after two or three kids you have decided as much as you enjoy being a mom you don’t necessarily want any more children. During your final pregnancy you probably have considered what you are going to do to get your figure back. Having a tummy tuck is a great way to slim your abdomen and regain some of that figure that you have lost. So how long do you need to wait before undergoing surgery to reclaim what once was lost?

There are varying time limits depending on the doctor that you are seeing. For some physicians six weeks is plenty of time to wait between having a child and getting a tummy tuck. Because your body has just been through a huge change it needs time to heal before you make any more changes to it. Also during pregnancy your blood volume has risen significantly, somewhere between 40% and 50%, and this healing time will allow it to return to its normal, pre-pregnancy volume.

Other cosmetic surgeons will require you to wait on a tummy tuck for at least three months. This will give your body not only time to heal, but for you to get some time to rest. Everyone knows how a newborn can keep his/her parents going in the middle of the night. Waiting until your hormones are back in order, your blood volume is back in order, and your rest is back in order can help you from suffering some setbacks after surgery. There is no reason to put yourself, your spouse, or your children through the stress of taking care of you and a newborn during this time.

Many surgeons recommend waiting not just because of the physical effects that it can have on you and your family, but also the emotional ones. While your hormone levels will return to normal within six weeks of birth, the strain of taking care of a newborn, running a household, taking care of other children, and possibly going back to work can be emotionally tiring as well. Taking the time to allow everyone get back into the groove of the everyday is essential.

Another factor for you and your surgeon to discuss is breast-feeding. If you plan on solely breast-feeding your child for the first six to twelve months of his/her life then a tummy tuck is out of the question. You can’t breast feed your child after any form of surgery because the drugs that will be introduced into your system will be passed on to your unsuspecting child through the milk. Painkillers can be harmful to your newborn infant.

The time period for waiting on a tummy tuck after pregnancy is flexible. If you and your physician think you can handle the surgery and everything else at six weeks then by all means have the surgery. If your physician suggests you wait an additional six weeks to ensure that you are back to your pre-pregnancy self then please head his advice. It will be better for you and better for your family.