Mummy Fitspo

Some doctors say a nip and tuck is necessary if you want to tighten your flabby belly after pregnancy.

- Eveline Gan

Cheryl (not her real name) worked her guts out at the gym six days a week, went on a strict diet and paid close to $40,000 for non-surgical abdomen shaping treatments.

But, the 35-year-old mum of two still couldn’t get rid of her flabby belly – the result of two pregnancies.

Last year, Cheryl, who gained 30kg during her first pregnancy, went under the knife to get her pre-baby waistline back.

During the procedure, plastic surgeon Chua Jun Jie from Mount Elizabeth Hospital tightened the loose tummy muscles to create a narrower, shapely midriff and removed over 1kg of excess skin from her belly.

“My babies were huge, each weighing around 4.5kg at birth. The pregnancies stretched out my skin so much that after delivery, my saggy belly would fold over my C-section scar. I went into depression for a while because of it,” says Cheryl, whose kids are aged 10 and five.

As much as new mums love their babies, the same can’t be said about their post-baby pooches. Cue the desperate attempts at using exercise, diets, creams, massages and wraps to squash “mummy tummy”.

But plastic surgeons say these methods or other home remedies usually don’t work on loose skin. In Cheryl’s case, a nip and tuck is what’s needed.

“Unfortunately, there is very little that can be done to tighten loose skin other than by surgery. Other skin tightening techniques (see These might work, too) can only minimally tighten the skin,” says Professor Walter Tan, a specialist in plastic surgery and consultant at Raffles Skin and Aesthetics.

WHY SO SAGGY?

During pregnancy, your skin stretches to accommodate your growing baby. Skin sags when collagen fibres rupture as it over stretches, giving rise to stretch marks, Prof Tan explains.