Will A Mommy Makeover Help My Depression?

Q: I came across your website, while doing research on cosmetic surgery.  I currently have depression.  After three pregnancies, I feel like my body is mangled.  I know that my self-image is what brings on most of my depression.  I know that depression alone is not a reason to have surgery. I have been treated for depression for about three years now.  I have thought about cosmetic surgery just as long.  After the pregnancies and losing weight, gaining weight, and losing weight, my belly definitely needs a tuck.  I breastfed all of my children.  I breastfed only for about 2 months with the first child but about a year with the last child.  With breastfeeding and losing weight; I barely have any breasts at all.

I am only 28 years old.  I want to feel young and beautiful again!  I know I deserve to and my husband deserves to have a wife who feels good about herself again.  My kids deserve a mother that feels comfortable enough to take them swimming. I would love to be able to eventually wear a bikini.

I know that some people may get depressed after they have surgery; whose to know how I will be after surgery.  Seeing that a lot of the causes of my depression are due to the way I feel about myself or view my body. I know surgery could not make my depression worse; if anything it will help improve the way I see myself and think about my body.  The only way surgery would worsen my depression is if I had surgery by a surgeon who did a lousy job.

I am not interested in looking fake.  I just want to look normal again. I would like to either be a full C or small D regarding my breast.

I suppose a ‘Mommy Makeover’ is what I am really looking for. What are your thoughts?

A: Of your situation and feelings, I understand completely and could not be more emphatic. Pregnancies can definitely take a toll on your body, and between the skin stretching and shrinking and the inevitable breast involution (loss of breast tissue), some women can not even recognize  the current skin and body that they now have.

As you have correctly pointed out, surgery is not a cure for depression. But at least it can improve one recognizeable and understandable cause of it…the way one looks. The body problems can definitely be improved and, hopefully with that, one’s self-image elevates. In my experience with women and these type of popular ‘Mommy Makeovers’, patient do report a dramatic improvement in their self-confidence and clothing options.

The classic ‘Mommy Makeover’ is some form of combined abdominal and breast rehaping plastic surgery procedures. This is usually a tummy tuck with or without liposuction and breast implants with or without a lift. In about a four hour surgery (or less), a dramatic body transformation can occur.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis Indiana