Body Case #3380

This is a 40 year old woman who had 4 children and developed a significant diastasis recti (a separation of the abdominal wall muscles).  She also had an umbilical (belly button) hernia.  While she loves her children, she really just wanted to get her body back in shape.  She had a hard time deciding to have the tummy tuck because she felt a little bit guilty about the time required away from her children as well as spending the money it would cost for something that her family sometimes thought was "vain".  In the end, we decided to go ahead and perform the abdominoplasty as well as fixing the hernia.

In this case, I chose to bring in a general surgeon to fix the hernia at the belly button.  This may have had something to do with my frustration with its appearance early postoperatively.  I wanted her to be perfect and so I did two revision procedures on the skin around the belly button, but couldn't find any satisfaction.  Eventually, we got a CT scan that showed the problem was more related to the way that the general surgeon fixed the hernia.  Once we got that squared away, I was able to make a much better umbilicus and that is what you are looking at in these photos some 9 months later.

One of the benefits of needing to see her so late after the original tummy tuck is that I got a photograph of her scar, which I have included above.  I normally tell patients that it will take 6-8 months for the scar to mature, but I almost never get a picture of them at that point because they have lives to lead and can't come into the city just for me to get my photo.  This time I did!

I hope you like it.

• Patient #: 3380
• Gender: Female
• Ethnicity: Caucasian
• Age: 36 - 40
• Procedure: Tummy Tuck