“Mommy Makeover” used to mean the kind of makeover fashion magazines favor. You take a drab, overworked mom and treat her to a day of pampering. Then you photograph her in her new outfit with fresh makeup, hair color and cut.
Today’s “Mommy Makeover” is about surgery. Quite a bit of it.
It’s for the Post-Childbearing Era
Today’s moms looking to regain their pre-pregnancy figures are enlisting the services of plastic surgeons like me. We’re being asked to raise their breasts, flatten their tummies, take off the weight they gained over multiple pregnancies, and sometimes to freshen up their faces, too.
It’s all about regaining the body you had before you started having children.
Pregnancy is Not Kind to Bodies
No one in her right mind would deny that pregnancy and childbearing play heck with a woman’s body.
1. As a baby grows it forces the uterus against the inside of the muscle wall of the abdomen. The two vertical muscles that hold in the tummy (the so-called “six pack muscles”) get stretched apart and elongate, resulting in a bulge that cannot be fixed with diet and exercise alone.
Only surgery can bring the muscles back together again.
2. The breasts grow and get larger during breast feeding. But after breastfeeding they typically decrease to a size smaller than before the pregnancy.
Result? Stretch marks and hanging breasts. You can’t exercise those away.
3. The daily grind of caring for children doesn’t mix well with rigorous gym schedules. The first few sleepless months after delivery usually kill women’s attempts at physical discipline. If that doesn’t do it, years of sacrificing one’s needs to the children’s probably will.
The result: weight gain, loss of tone, more cellulite.
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Shadows of Their Former Selves
Faces often get careworn, too, with the exhaustion and frustrations that raising kids can entail. “About the same time I was struggling with my weight, I also noticed that my eyelids had become droopy, and the skin on my brow had begun to sag,” commented a 38-year-old mother of four. “It gave me an aged, worried look.”
She decided to get a browlift at the same time she got her tummy tuck, breast lift and liposuction. After she was healed she looked extraordinary.
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Crisis Becomes an Opportunity
Another 35-year-old mother of 2 decided to turn the crisis of her sagging post-partum breasts into an opportunity. “I always wanted to be a full-breasted woman,” said this petite, 5’1” blonde. When she went in for her Mommy Makeover, she added a breast augmentation to her tummy tuck and lipo.
Her breasts were still firm enough that they could be reshaped and raised just by adding an implant – a lift wasn’t necessary. With her midriff reshaped and a newly sumptuous bust line she looked better than she had in her 20s.
Not Hard to See Why
Magazine articles and TV pundits looking for the “Why” behind this new trend come up with all kinds of reasons for it:
- More older mothers these days – their bodies get more out-of-control
- Career women want to look competitive when they exit the Mommy Track
- Spoiled Boomer women won’t tolerate a normal post-partum look
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To my mind, these rationales all beg the question. Women are taking advantage of this option simply because they can. Medical advances have made plastic surgery safer and less painful than ever.
Also, it doesn’t hurt that First-world countries are experiencing one of the greatest accumulations of wealth in human history.
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The Trend is Here to Stay
Once an advance in self-maintenance is taken up by a few people, it tends to spread throughout the culture. Look for this trend to grow and prosper.
The next time you see a mom with 4 kids who looks impossibly good for her age and circumstances, you’re probably right. She didn’t do it alone.
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