Rayme Cornell: So Emma how are you feeling about body after baby?
Emma Brown: Not too bad, I nurse for quite a while so that helped and I am hitting the gym, but it has taken a bit of time.
Rayme Cornell: Well, it's hard work. It is not easy.
Emma Brown: Yeah, but there are some women out there that making look so easy, celebrities in particular.
Rayme Cornell: My sneaking suspicion is that they have a little help from a friend.
Emma Brown: Well, I guess it is part of their job to look perfect, and money isn't an object, but I have to ask myself, if I won the lottery, would I go under the knife? I don't know.
Body After Baby: The Plastic Surgery Debate
Emma Brown: So there are so many wonderful things to happen having a baby but one of the not so pleasant side effects that changes to your body. What are the biggest complaints that we hear about moms in their bodies?
Alicia Monart: My way of concern is just -- I don't like having around hanging skin here. I just always had a fat stomach before I had children, and had 240 pounds pregnancies and 2 c-sections and another surgery prior to that, and I just feel like I don't have muscle anymore and a good example is when I blow dry my hair and I look down, I can see my tummy that really bothers me.
Catherine Baker-Pitts: There is a way that postpartum body has become so stigmatized and this focus on its appearance rather than what it can do in a very functional way give birth, birth life and I have remembered from my last pregnancy which I have sort of decided to embrace. I sort of see it as a badge of honor in someway, I mean I think that obviously it requires some resistance again certain cultural forces.
The cosmetic surgery industry is creating a whole new standard of what's normative postpartum and it's worth asking why? I mean we are changed following child birth, why do have to deny the marker of that change.
Emma Brown: It's just the unhappiness with the look, but is that cultural or is it just need?
Dr. Richard D'Amico: There has been some good research that shows that we have this natural instinct for self preservation. We have a body image that we develop and it's pretty well set by the time we are 30 and there is a drive and a need and a value in each of us, men and women by the way, that we just want to be me. We want to be that person. And part of that person may or may not be your body appearance and your muscles and how you are.
Catherine Baker-Pitts: But how could that possibly be separated from culture?
Dr. Richard D'Amico: Well, I don't know that you have to separate it from culture, but I think the notion that people are coming in because they are culturally driven to cosmetic surgery, that's just not the case.
Now there is no question that there maybe cultural rewards that maybe internalize just part of this, but certainly there are some physical issues that women have to deal with after pregnancy.
Alicia Monart: My opinion is, I always felt good about myself but I always love the fact that I can workout and get results, and I workout and I get results, and I think I do have serious problem and it is dragging me down mentally I think.
Emma Brown: One of the most obvious solutions would be going under the knife, would you consider that?
Alicia Monart: I would seriously consider it now, having had my last child, but my big thing is fear. I am a little bit nervous about going under the knife, if I don't have to.
Dr. Richard D'Amico: I think fear is a good think, a little bit of fear, it makes everybody do their research, do their homework, checkout the credentials of the surgeon, but my colleagues and I feel very strongly that you should do the things for yourself that you can do. Have you managed your body weight? Are you in the right range? Are you doing your diet and your exercise?
Emma Brown: So Debbi how long will you in the process of getting ready for the operation that you had?
Debbi Parker: Actually about two years. Two years of study, weight loss, being very strict and in a right state of mind.
Note: Prior to surgery, candidates should be assessed with regards to mental and physical well-being. This may take several consultations.
Dr. Richard D'Amico: The consultation is a matter of accessing the patients' history, their physical situation, their emotional situation, and there is no rush to surgery, nor there is any rush to judgment. In the traditional approach to cosmetic surgery, there is multiple consultations before there is a surgical procedure.
Catherine Baker-Pitts: Well, that's your ethical practice, I mean I have interviewed many women and often times that's not the case. Sometimes, there is a consultation on the phone, I have attended many consultations with women who had plan surgery for the next day.
Dr. Richard D'Amico: Well, that's completely inappropriate, and well I am speaking about a model.
Catherine Baker-Pitts: Yeah, I agree but unfortunately it's very unregulated.
Dr. Richard D'Amico: Well, I am describing 5,000 colleagues in the United States, with ethical board certifications, this kind of evaluation is part of it.
Emma Brown: And so you can't generalize for those 5,000.
Dr. Richard D'Amico: I am here because I can generalize in terms of the model.
Note: ASPS suggests to look for a broad certified plastic surgeon who promotes a safe clinical practice.
Alicia Monart: I will say, I have talked to a few plastic surgeons and I have had one that had said, okay, schedule it for three months, and know her history, that's one of the things -- that are the reasons I came here because I really feel like there is more education to be learned and --
Julie Tupler: And did that surgeon told you there is scar from here to here? That you are going to be numbed for a while and all of that?
Alicia Monart: Yes.
Julie Tupler: Okay.
Emma Brown: So let's talk about the actual procedures that are typically in a Mommy Makeover, obviously breasts are the one, and I guess then the tummy tuck.
Note: Last year, 399,440 breast augmentations and 185,355 tummy tucks were performed.
Dr. Richard D'Amico: It's absolutely correct to say, usually the issues are with the breast or the body. Let's explain it a tummy tuck because we throw that term around. A full or traditional tummy tuck or abdominoplasty really encompasses the three layers of the tummy wall.
We have the skin on the outside, the muscle on the inside of the wall, and then in between we may have a little bit of fatter, maybe a lot of fat. So all three can be addressed. They don't have to be addressed in every case. So we have modified tummy tucks, maybe the muscles have been brought back in with exercise, but we still have some extra skin.
Julie Tupler: People say, is my skin going to look better and I said well no the skin --
Alicia Monart: I think, lots of my friends agree with that.
Dr. Richard D'Amico: So some patients need that and some patients don't, and sometimes it's just we can contour the body with liposuction and lift the breast and that's what we did with Debbi.
Emma Brown: So Debbi how did you recover, I mean how long -- was it painful for or it wasn't painful?
Debbi Parker: It was a change thing, definitely you have to put your mind together and know that this was a good thing and that the healing process is going to take time and dramatically I can see the change already.
Emma Brown: Really?
Debbi Parker: Yes.
Emma Brown: And did that lifts -- but it doesn't hurt come on, tell us.
Debbi Parker: Actually it really, really -- it just felt like, you know like if you haven't worked out in like five years and you ran up a set of stairs and you came back down and next day you couldn't get up. It's just really, really sore.
Emma Brown: Debbi, are you happier now?
Debbi Parker: Absolutely! That I restored my image, my perspective of what I want, for no one else but for me.
Emma Brown: Good! Do you feel any --?
Alicia Monart: I do, I feel, before I came in one way and now I am kind of in the middle. So I am really happy that I came. I've learned a lot from everyone and I am going to do more research.
Emma Brown: Great! Well thank you all so much for coming. It has definitely given me a fruitful thought. Thank you very much!
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services