One of the most common questions that we get when we’re doing a mommy makeover or a tummy tuck is “What’s my belly button going to look like?”
Most people aren’t going to wear a tiny bikini, though we hope that you will after your mommy makeover. This is about more than just restoring your confidence; these procedures make you feel fabulous, literally in your own skin, and get you into a spot where you love the way you look. You’ve been working hard. You’ve been taking care of everyone else, and now it’s really time to do something for yourself.
The belly button tends to be the biggest hangup for a lot of patients, because they want it to look completely natural. They want to be able to wear whatever they want: a two-piece swimsuit, a bikini, or just a dress that maybe shows off a little bit of their abdomen. So, no question, in the tummy tuck and mommy makeover, it all comes together, but the belly button is the focal point of this.
I think it’s about a little bit more than just a fancy suit for the belly button. It’s really how you sculpt and shape the entire abdomen. When we do a tummy tuck, the idea and concept have changed from just pulling the skin as tight as possible and removing as much skin. We want to get you tightened and set right, but it’s about bringing all aspects together harmoniously.
We put your initial incision as low as possible, because setting that initial incision extremely low increases the depth and separation from your tummy tuck scar to your belly button itself.
Next, it’s shaping. Remember, it’s still your belly button stalk. It’s still your actual natural belly button, but we’re re-creating it. We’re making this set with a little centerpiece of your abdomen. The concept behind this is that we lift it, we’ll shorten it, so it’ll pull that skin down. This will help hide your incision, so now all people see is your natural skin, the new shape. The incisions are actually hidden underneath and down below.
The belly button also has to do with how wet the muscle is, so that we can contour and shape the tummy itself. It also has to do with how we like the sculpt, because the days of just trying to pull you as tight and not sculpt and shape in the tummy tuck are gone.
Sculpting around it helps give this appearance and shape that flows with the belly button, because we’ll create a natural hood — this little bit of slope — so it doesn’t look like a perfect circle or like a slit, which are both unnatural, in my opinion.
The other things we do are removing fat from underneath during the tummy tuck, because this helps the belly button sit deeper. This is where the lipo sculpting and direct excision help shape and sculpt the belly button to give you a totally natural but very sexy belly button appearance.
Some special suture techniques are used to hide the incision and avoid the telltale signs of a scar around the belly button, and I think that’s absolutely priceless in these procedures.
I think there is some real art to creating the opening where the belly button will come through to create a little bit of natural hood, a triangular V-shaped contour to the abdomen that makes you look very sleek and athletic.
I think post-op, this is one of the things that we also pride ourselves on: helping train and take care of the belly button. I think there are a few things afterwards, including some of the silicone ball trainings that you really need to do, because it helps keep the shape of that belly button.
The silicone helps remove any scarring or helps decrease the scar of the belly button as well, just to maximize the appearance and keep that shape that we created.
So, you know, you did the hard work getting into a good spot for your mommy makeover or tummy tuck. We did the hard work during surgery, and then we want to do all the things afterwards so we can help maintain and support the results of your transformation.
So hopefully this helps explain how we create the best belly button for your mommy makeover or tummy tuck. I hope to see you soon!
