Articles about us: Flat Tummy Forever
Text: Jana Hájková, photo: Tomáš Pánek
A well-worked abdominal area has become a symbol of feminine beauty, as have sexy, swelling breasts and slim hips. But what can be done if your memories of pregnancy include sadly hanging skin on your stomach?
Because in some cases, you can exercise and work out like crazy, and yet the unattractive tummy nook will not go away. Then, the only thing to do is to consign yourself to the care of a plastic surgeon. The effect might be unbelievable. I saw it.
„Last week, I bought a two-piece swimsuit for the first time in my life. I wouldn’t have dared before,“ says Monika Kučerová (38), her face all lit up. A mother of two, working as a hair dresser, agreed for us to observe the rather radical transformation of her body. Through changing her diet and regular excercise, she managed to gradually lose 25 kg and stop at 90.
„To keep the weight was easy. It was my stomach – simply a disaster. Surely it was for having children that I couldn’t get rid of the hanging bag of skin that was making me really unhappy“. Monika explains the reason she finally decided to undergo plastic surgery of her tummy, so called abdominoplasty. It is a major surgical procedure that solves the problem of sagging skin and a loose abdominal wall, mostly caused by pregnancy or drastic weight-loss. Monika had had both, therefore she consigned herself into the hands of Dr Zuzana Černá, the senior doctor of the Laderma Clinic of Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery in Prague. We had observed the procedure step by step.
How to Transplant the Belly Button
(in the operation room)
We met Monika and Dr Černá five months ago, on the day of the operation. The operation is conditional upon the patient being in a good shape and it requires a good pre-operation examination. „We are going to take a photo of Ms Kučerová standing and at the same time draw on her abdominal area the planned section. It is necessary to measure precisely how much skin together with the subcutaneous fat can be removed,” explains Dr Černá while trying, still without a scalpel, to handle different parts of the abdominal excessive skin. The following procedure takes two hours and is performed under full anesthesia. The section is led right above the pubic hair, between both iliac bones. I want to know if the scar can be hidden in a bottom part of a bathing suit. „The scar is designed to be fully covered by underwear. We try to make it the lowest possible but we are limited by the excessive skin,“ explains Dr Černá. The scars in the abdominal parts can be gradually softened by applying pressure massage. Eventually they fade but of course they do not disappear for good. There is always a price for everything.
Besides removing the excessive skin from the belly button down, a part of the operation is also transplantation of the belly button to the already tightened skin (after tightening the skin, an aperture is cut to place the belly button). „The aim of this operation is also the reinforcement of the straight abdominal muscles that might have been lost during pregnancy. In the course of the operation, these are sutured, thus making the waist slimmer. Mostly it is up to several centimeters difference,“ the doctor adds.
The operation is coming to an end. The upper and lower edge of the skin are sutured together, providing the neccessary compactness. There is still drainage placed under the skin, removing blood and tissue secretion in the first 24 to 48 hours after the operation.
