The RPS Blog

The benefits of tummy tucks are more plentiful than most people realize. Excess skin removal and the tightening of abdominal muscles will give your stomach a flatter, firmer appearance in addition to decreasing the width of your waistline. Often, the appearance of stretch marks, particularly beneath the line of the navel, can be dramatically improved if not eliminated by the procedure. Other tummy tuck benefits may include a boost in self-confidence and an improvement in the way your clothes fit.

Tummy tuck surgery offers aesthetic benefits. If your stomach has been stretched beyond the limits of natural repair by weight loss or pregnancy, abdominoplasty may be the solution for you. The benefits to your appearance include a firmer, flatter belly, a smoother stomach contour and a narrower waist. Tummy tucks also benefit many patients with abdominal stretch marks. In many cases, stretch marks below the navel are removed along with the excess skin at the close of the procedure and the appearance of remaining stretch marks is often improved when the skin of the abdomen is pulled taut.

Inevitably, loose skin is a result of the age-related reduction in skin elasticity but can be exacerbated by weight loss surgery or pregnancy. Unlike liposuction alone, a tummy tuck procedure allows for excess skin removal to augment stubborn pockets of fat. One of the most attractive tummy tuck benefits is that, not only can a tummy tuck surgeon treat a protruding belly, he or she can make it appear that the belly was never protruding in the first place. In some cases, abdominoplasty also benefits a patient’s health. Large folds of sagging skin are prone to infections with fungus, a problem suffered by many patients following bariatric surgery. In cases such as this, where not undergoing excess skin removal may present a health risk, your insurance may cover part of the cost of surgery.

Some tummy tuck benefits involve not only how your new abdomen looks but also how it feels – firmer and tighter. Sometimes simply as a result of age or because of pregnancy, the abdominal muscles can begin to separate at the midline of the belly. This muscle laxity not only reduces muscle strength but can also produce an appearance of general abdominal sagging, a condition known as rectus diastasis. Exercise can alleviate the problem in its earliest stages but when the damage is severe, often it can only be corrected through surgery. Endoscopic tummy tuck surgery can tighten the abdominal muscles without removing excess skin and thus with much less visible scars.

How long you maintain your tummy tuck benefits tends to be limited only by how well you take care of your body after surgery. Under the proper conditions, the results of an abdominoplasty surgery can last for many years. The two factors that most directly affect the longevity of tummy tuck benefits are pregnancy and weight gain. While any woman who has had a tummy tuck procedure may elect to have more children, during the pregnancy and subsequent birth, the skin of the abdomen will stretch and the abdominal muscles will lose their firmness. She will likely have to undergo another surgery to recapture the initial improvements to her body’s appearance. The same is true of any significant weight gain. Although age does decrease the skin’s natural elasticity over time, the strain of excess body fat content is the most common cause of dramatically sagging skin. Living a healthy and active lifestyle will safeguard your tummy tuck benefits, for at least a decade after your initial surgery or longer.