Mommy makeover – a service actually needed or a successful advertising campaign?

A woman’s body during pregnancy and after childbirth

During pregnancy, a woman’s body weight increases due to the baby and the placenta growing, the breasts getting bigger, the amniotic fluid and the fluids created in the body, the larger amount of flood and fatty tissue. While the average normal weight gain during pregnancy falls between 10–15 kilograms, there are women who gain more, however hard they try to avoid it. The extra kilos deposited as localised fatty tissue (on the thighs or in the abdomen area, for example) can be hard to lose later even with strict dieting and workouts and oftentimes, the stretched out stomach is just not going to firm back up.

Giving birth to one child versus multiple pregnancies

Talking about changes in the body, the number of children a woman has given birth to is important. We cannot compare a woman with a normal weight gain and one child with a woman who has had eight children, for example, or has had multiple pregnancies or an unplanned caesarean section. It is completely natural that after giving birth to several children, a woman’s body will change. But if a woman is not happy with her body and does not feel good in her skin or, even worse, experiences postnatal depression due to her changed looks, she has the right to have her body fixed and in certain cases, aesthetic medicine would be a good solution.

The women coming in for abdominoplasty generally have had several pregnancies – for example, often, the women turning to the clinic with abdominal issues have given birth to twins or triplets, and mothers who have had caesarean sections make up a large percentage. A woman is not just a birthing machine with the sole purpose of delivering and nursing babies; she does not need to be toothless, breastless, overweight, etc., after childbirth.

Mommy makeover – myths and reality

In aesthetic surgery, the term mommy makeover has been spreading, indicating that generally, after having children, women turn to clinics with two main issues – sagging breasts and/or belly. There are myths spreading in media, saying that plastic surgeons go to maternity hospitals to find young women as new patients. The manager of Christinas Clinic, Brit-Carmen, explains that beliefs and statements like this are extremely inappropriate: “Of course, no-one is doing anything like that. The mommy makeover service, as a rule, is designed for mature women or women who have already had the desired number of children. Of course, the mommy makeover presumes thorough contemplation and sometimes preliminary work. In case of diastasis recti, or abdominal muscle separation, sometimes, we instruct women to do specific exercises targeting the condition, for a few months before surgery. In aesthetic surgery, no “body swap surgeries” are done – problems are attempted to be solved with corrective surgeries and in cooperation with the patients. The fact that the mommy makeover has become that popular across the world, shows that the service really is needed and is not just a successful advertising campaign – no process or surgery would get positive feedback everywhere if it didn’t yield the desired results. Pointless solutions are quickly seen through and do not gain popularity. Of course, it is important to focus on the child/children, but this doesn’t mean that a woman who is unable to accept the changes in her appearance should not be allowed to have anything done.”

Attention! This is a healthcare service. Christinas Clinic is licensed by the Health Board, permit L04361 (CBF Medical OÜ). The operations and procedures are performed by healthcare professionals.