Top Tips on How to Maintain Your Mommy Makeover Surgery Results

One of our most popular cosmetic procedures is what we call the Mommy Makeover Surgery—something we offer to moms who simply want to regain the way they looked before they had kids. The specifics of the Mommy Makeover Surgery vary, simply depending on the patient’s needs. Some moms want to get rid of a large belly bulge, something that comprises a tummy tuck; others want to regain some shape or volume for their breasts, which can involve breast lift and/or augmentation. Most of the time, a Mommy Makeover includes some combination of these procedures, but it may also encompass any other procedures that help a mom feel like herself again.

It goes without saying that, when you come in for a Mommy Makeover Surgery, you want the results to be long-lasting. The first step here is timing it right: we always tell moms to hold off on having this surgery until they are sure they are done having kids!

Additionally, there are some things you can do during the recovery phase and thereafter that can help you prolong your results—ensuring that you continue to look and feel your absolute best for many years to come. Here are just a few of our guidelines and tips for making your Mommy Makeover results long-lasting.

Make Sure You’re Fully Recovered and Have Completely Healed from Surgery

The quickest way to diminish your results—and possibly to really hurt yourself, in the process—is to try doing too much or being too active before your body has fully healed.

Remember that a Mommy Makeover is in fact surgery—and as such, it takes a toll on your body. You’ll need to allow yourself some time to rest before you ease back into your daily grind. To that end, you’ll receive comprehensive post-op recovery instructions. It’s vital that you follow them carefully.

The bottom line: Doing too much, too soon after surgery can have complications that negatively impact your results.

Maintain Good Health through Regular Physical Activity

Just as it was before your surgery, your health is extremely important after surgery too. And once you are out of the recovery phase, it’s important that you invest in some long-term, healthy habits. Simply put, one of the best ways to preserve your results is to ensure you are in overall good health.

There are different components to this, and exercise tops the list. Make sure you get regular physical activity to keep your body youthful, trim, and full of energy.

Maintain a Stable Weight

Related to that last point, you’ll want to maintain a good, healthy weight following your Mommy Makeover Surgery—something that can entail both your exercise and nutritional habits.

Major fluctuations either up or down can impact the results of your procedure, which is part of the reason why we recommend that patients be at a good, stable weight—a weight they can maintain for years to come—before their surgery.

Just to give one example, weight gain of more than 15 pounds after a tummy tuck will stretch out the abdominal area, undoing what was achieved with the procedure—and obviously, that’s the last thing you want!

Secondarily, weight gain or weight loss of more than 15 pounds after a breast procedure can cause the breasts to enlarge, stretch, or sag, essentially undoing what was achieved with the breast surgery – again, not the ideal outcome after having a procedure!

Since we mentioned exercise above, we’ll make note of nutrition here: What you really want to avoid are extreme “yo-yo diets” and nutritional fads. Instead, focus on a consistently healthy lifestyle that includes a reasonable diet—eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins and enjoy “cheat meals” in moderation.

Avoid Future Pregnancies

We mentioned this one above: Simply put, we’d recommend not having a Mommy Makeover Surgery until you feel confident that you don’t want any more kids (or at least not any more biological kids).

A Mommy Makeover is best performed after you’ve brought all your little bundles of joy into the world. After you’ve tightened your tummy and lifted/enlarged your breasts with a Mommy Makeover, a pregnancy can loosen things up again, undoing all those results. Wait until you’re no longer planning future pregnancies to schedule your procedures.

Stop Smoking

Are you a smoker? If so, we’d recommend that you quit smoking in order to preserve the results of your procedure.

In fact, we generally prefer our patients to quit smoking well before they even have the surgery—and for a number of reasons. There are matters of patient safety, as a smoking habit will make surgical complication far more likely, and it can also impede the recovery process.

When you quit smoking, not only does it help guarantee a smoother recovery, but it’s also vital for maintaining your overall health and wellbeing—going back to everything we said before about ensuring a healthy lifestyle post-Mommy Makeover.

Keep Your Incisions Out of the Sun

Following your surgery, you’ll have some minimal scarring and some incision marks on your body. We are generally able to keep them small and discreet, but you’ll want to be aware of them and do everything you can to keep them out of direct sunlight.

There’s a simple reason for this: If you expose your incision marks to sunlight before your body has fully healed, it can actually cause those scars to darken and sometimes thicken—making them more noticeable.

Keeping your scar protected from UV damage until it fades to your normal skin color may prevent scar darkening, and thus give you even more discreet results.

Get a Mommy Makeover Surgery from a Board-Certified Cosmetic Surgeon

Finally, one of the truly critical components of getting long-lasting results is making sure you have the surgery performed by a qualified surgeon—someone who is certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery and who will work with you closely to ensure you’re on the same page about the desired results.

Always have a consultation before the procedure, and be sure your surgeon is someone you feel totally comfortable with. As always, we encourage our patients to seek multiple opinions before they choose a surgeon.

At Charlotte Plastic Surgery, we love working with moms to help them look and feel like themselves again—reversing some of those unwanted side effects of becoming a mom! We’d love to consult with you today and to talk with you about how you can achieve—and maintain—the results you’re looking for. Reach out to us today to schedule your consultation!