Types of Mommy Makeover

In our practice, a Mommy Makeover can include a breast procedure (a lift, an augmentation or both), a tummy tuck, but also some other procedures. With pregnancy, the labia minora can stretch and cause discomfort during sex. Or possibly the labia can appear too bulky in underwear or bikini bottoms. For this reason, there are Mommy Makeover procedures that also include a labiaplasty.

With weight gain and loss during pregnancy and afterwards, the buttocks can become deflated like the breasts. That’s why we offer a Brazilian Butt Lift with some Mommy Makeover procedures. The benefit of performing these procedures in combination is that it leads to one recovery instead of multiple recoveries.

Mommy Makeover

As stated above, this procedure includes a breast lift, aug or both along with a tummy tuck. To help the patient understand all of their options when it comes to the breast procedure, we’ve divided every Mommy Makeover into type 1, 2 and 3.

Type 1 refers to a breast lift only. This is necessary when the patient has pendulous, droopy breasts after breast feeding. But they have enough breast tissue so that an implant isn’t necessary. Type 2 refers to a breast augmentation alone. This is necessary when a patient has deflated breasts and needs more volume, as with an implant. And type 3 is a combination of the two – when a patient has droopy and deflated breasts. A lift will improve the shape of the breast and an implant will restore volume.

As you’ll see below, type 1, 2 and 3 can be applied to all three kinds of Mommy Makeover that we offer in our practice.

Mommy Makeover Plus

This is a breast procedure (type 1, 2 or 3), a tummy tuck and a labiaplasty.

Mommy Makeover Deluxe

This includes type 1, 2 or 3 breast procedure as above, a tummy tuck and then a Brazilian Butt Lift to restore volume and lift to the buttocks. A Brazilian Butt Lift is the liposuction of all available fat from the torso with subsequent injection into the buttocks. Check out the video below for more details!

Video describing the 3 types of a Mommy Makeover

Check pricing for a Mommy Makeover from Dr. Kaplan by clicking here.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post 3 types of a Mommy Makeover [video] first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

With the holidays upon us, we’re under the gun to get a great gift for our husband or wife, or if we’re being PC, our partner. Your husband probably doesn’t want a tie and your wife doesn’t want a vacuum cleaner. In an attempt to think outside of the box, should you buy your partner cosmetic surgery as a gift?! It’s a double-edged sword.

Cosmetic surgery as a gift

If your spouse or significant other has expressed interest in a particular cosmetic procedure, then giving it to them as a “gift” is reasonable. But even if they said they wanted X, Y and Z, do they really want that for Christmas or Hanukkah? Keep in mind that this is the gift that results in pain and the need for recovery. Is that how they want to spend their holiday?

And if you purchase this gift for them, and they’re in pain, you’re on the hook as the caregiver. Is that how you want to spend your holiday?!

Be sure that’s really what they want. If this wasn’t an oft-talked about interest of theirs, they may take it the wrong way. They may be offended that you think they need this, that or the other.

An anecdote

I once had a childhood friend’s husband contact me about a breast lift for his wife. I’m sure he thought he was being thoughtful with this gift. And it would ultimately benefit both him and his wife. After discussing the procedure with him, I left the ball in his court. I never heard back except that I noticed years later they were divorced.

Was it the suggestion that she get cosmetic surgery? Or was the cosmetic surgery an attempt to spice things up in an already defunct marriage? We may never know but don’t take the offer of cosmetic surgery as a gift lightly. It could go south very quickly!

To check pricing on cosmetic surgery from Dr. Kaplan, click here.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Should you buy your partner cosmetic surgery as a gift? first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

Depending on how much lift you need for your breasts after having kids, you may be a candidate for a periareolar breast lift. In the GIF above, this technique is great if your nipple is at or just below the fold under your breast. That fold is also referred to as the inframammary fold, or IMF for short.

Am I a candidate for a periareolar breast lift?

Whether it’s breast feeding or just age, the breast tend to droop. There are several ways to lift the breasts, but depending on the amount of droop, this can require more incisions, which means more scars.

When the breast sags, the easiest way to provide more volume is a breast implant. This requires the fewest incisions and thus, the fewest scars. But you can’t expect an implant to do all the heavy lifting in all cases. If a breast has a great deal of sag and only an implant to help, the result will be an implant high on the chest, with the breast falling off the front of the implant like a waterfall.

Various types of breast lifts

To avoid this, your surgeon will remove excess skin to tighten the breast “skin envelope.” If you have a lot of excess skin, an anchor incision is necessary. That’s when the incision goes around the nipple and areola, then down to the IMF and then horizontally within the IMF.

Less droop? Then you only need an incision around the nipple and areola and then down to the IMF. This is a “lollipop incision.” Lastly, if you have even less droop, but too much to rely on just an implant, then you may be a candidate for the periareolar breast lift as shown above and below.

This is when excess skin is removed from just around the pigmented areola. The skin is gathered around the areola to lift the breast. Your doctor can also place an implant through the incision around the areola. As seen in the video, a GoreTex suture is the suture of choice to permanently keep the skin tight. Because the lift is around the areola, this is also the location of the tension. So if you use an absorbable stitch, the incision can slowly spread under all the tension.

With a permanent GoreTex suture, even with tension along the incision line, the GoreTex keeps the scar from spreading. Also, the smooth GoreTex suture makes it easy to tighten the skin around the areola as seen in the video.

Watch the video!

To check Dr. Kaplan’s pricing for this procedure, click here.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Periareolar breast lift [video] first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

The case for a BBL in your 50’s

After pregnancy, women can develop ptotic, pendulous breasts. Getting a breast aug and/or lift is a natural next decision by those patients. Even without pregnancy, a woman’s breasts may start to sag with age, instigating them to consider a breast lift. We wouldn’t think someone getting a breast lift or breast aug due to breast ptosis as an outrageous decision. In this context, a BBL is no different.

As we age, everyone gets a droopy butt as well. Volume is lost and the buttock skin envelope slackens. In the same way a patient would want to restore volume to their breasts, it’s not unreasonable to want to restore volume and perkiness to the buttocks either. While a BBL can be performed by placing implants into the butt, similar to implants for the breasts, the more prevailing technique is fat injections.

The benefit of using fat for a Brazilian Butt Lift is that the patient gets two operations in one. First, they undergo liposuction to the front and back of the torso to collect fat. That fat is then purified and injected into the buttocks to give the patient a fuller, more lifted buttock. This leads to better fitting clothes as well as a “lifted” attitude and outlook. So if someone you know in their 50’s is considering either a breast lift or buttock lift, don’t judge!

Check pricing on a BBL or even a breast aug or breast aug and lift from Dr. Kaplan by clicking on the corresponding links.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post A BBL can be tasteful – even in your 50’s! first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

When you’re a plastic surgeon, “cocktail conversation” at a party can involve any and all topics. How much recovery do I need after a neck lift? Can you get rid of my cankles? Breast pumping, not breastfeeding, resulted in my saggy breasts! This particular party patron made the last comment as a matter of fact. I was a little embarrassed that I didn’t “know” that pumping led to saggy breasts moreso than breastfeeding. Seems like if that was true, I would know that by now.

Is pumping a greater culprit of saggy breasts than breastfeeding?

This was not a topic in medical school. So between Google and other colleagues, this is what I found: the information online is really spotty. Most search results aren’t definitive and don’t reflect a series of studies. Rather, you find opinions on various online forums like reddit.

“Expert” opinion often takes the form of someone with an ulterior motive. The pro pumping stance comes from someone selling a breast pump. The pro breastfeeding stance from an organization selling yoga or transcendental meditation classes. Of course there are also genuine opinions from mothers but even amongst these real experts, there’s no consensus.

Taken altogether, saggy breasts are a result of pregnancy, not necessarily the technique of providing milk to the baby. There is no direct correlation of sagging being worse with breastfeeding or pumping. They certainly have their own advantages: emotional connection with a child during breastfeeding; ability to return to work with pumping.

At the end of the day, it depends on the quality of skin and ligaments in the breast. And this depends mostly on your genetic makeup and ability for your skin to recoil and tighten after pregnancy. So if you’re unhappy with saggy breasts, there are surgical and non-surgical options. The non-surgical options to tighten the skin seem to work but very temporarily. The only way to retain long-term results is with surgery but, as a surgeon, I don’t want to sound like I have an ulterior motive!

That disclosure being said, you can check pricing on cosmetic surgical and non-surgical items, in particular a mommy makeover, from Dr. Kaplan, here!

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Jonathan Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Saggy breasts worse after breastfeeding or pumping? first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.