What is a Reverse Abdominoplasty?

What is a reverse abdominoplasty or a reverse tummy tuck? A reverse tummy tuck is a variation on the usual pattern of skin excision that’s preformed with standard abdominoplasty. Instead of removing all of the skin in the lower abdomen through a super pubic incision in a reverse tummy tuck some lower abdominal skin is removed through the same incision while some upper abdominal skin is removed through incisions placed in the infirmary folds below the breasts. This tightens the upper abdominal skin and lower abdominal skin simultaneously through the lower incision the entire abdominal wall can still be tightened. The belly button or umbilicus floated with the abdominal skin flap so that through the inferior approach the muscle layer of the abdominal wall can be tightened from sternum to pubic bone. A reverse abdominoplasty is a surgery that is primarily performed for patients that whether pregnancy very well and do not have a tremendous amount of lower abdominal skin laxity that would be treated with conventional tummy tuck. There is some important criteria that should be met for this procedure however ideally the patient should have an aesthetically ideal umbilicus or belly button, if the belly button doesn’t look good preoperatively then one might as well perform a conventional tummy tuck and create a new belly button in process. Secondly patients should have very faint or ideally no stretch marks, with a reverse abdominoplasty you are both pulling the skin upwards above the belly button and downwards below the belly button, if there are stretch marks around the belly button the reverse abdominal skin excision will actually pull them higher on the abdominal wall so for patients that have significant stretch marks I prefer to do conventional abdominoplasty, in most cases this pulls the stretch marks lower on the abdominal wall and ultimately it makes the patient appear to have fewer stretch marks. The last consideration is this, the infirmary folds scars need to be hidden within the infirmary fold so this is a surgery for patients that have enough press volume to create some lower pull fullness that helps to conceal the infirmary folds and thus the infirmary folds scars. If you feel you meet these criteria then discuss this surgery with your surgeon and find out if it’s something that they offer or have experience with, if you are going to have this surgery performed you want to make sure you see lots of before and after photographs of a reverse abdominoplasty so the you can see that the abdominal profile is flat and the scars are well concealed.