I am watching a talk right now on abdominoplasty. They talked about the muscle, the skin, and the belly button.
But what about the pubic area?
I get that it is a taboo subject. (Though with some of the songs that are popular right now, maybe not so taboo). But when discussing liposuction or tummy tucks, you need to address the pubic area. (NOTE: this is not the vagina, or the labia. The pubic area is the hair bearing skin that faces forward just above your thighs). When you gain weight, you can gain fat in that area. When you have pregnancies and stretch out your belly skin, you also can stretch out that area. Again, super cringe-y thing to talk about, but when I see a woman with a blown out abdomen after having kids, it isn’t uncommon to see the vaginal area has fallen down. Sometimes it doesn’t point forward anymore. Sometimes you can’t see it so well. Sometimes it is really puffy and fat. None of this is good – for self esteem, for yoga pant wearing, or for sex.
So you can’t forget about the pubic area.
When marking for the tummy tuck, remember while you stretch the abdominal skin down, you are also stretching the pubic and thigh skin up. You don’t want your hair bearing pubic area to go half way up your abdomen. So looking at scar placement and the size and height of the pubic area is important.
Also many women have fat in the pubic area. If you are doing liposuction during the abdominoplasty (which many do, to help sculpt the flanks and inner thigh), you also want to make sure to liposuction the pubic area.
Even if you don’t have much fat in that area now, remember when we do tummy tucks and liposuction, when we remove fat, we are CHANGING YOUR FAT PATTERN. So if you gain weight in the future, it will go to where we did not do liposuction. I have had patients come to me who had abdominoplasties or liposuction done by other surgeons who now have a lot of fat in the pubic area. It is devastating to them. It is easily avoided by addressing the area during the first surgery.
So.
If you are doing an abdominoplasty or liposuction, check yourself out. Do you like how your pubic area looks? Is it too tall? droopy? fat? Again, this is the pubic area- not the vagina itself or the labia. But it is worthwhile to think about and make sure your surgeon addresses it.
Bring on the yoga pants.