The key to a great tummy tuck is a great belly button. The belly button has two blood supplies – one from the skin around it and one from the liver. There are two veins and one artery that come from the liver and go to the bottom of your belly button. This is how your mother fed you when you were inside her. In a full tummy tuck, the belly button is circumscribed (a cut is made all the way around it), and it is dropped inside to be brought out through a new opening.
Another little known fact about the belly button is that it is not a midline structure. It is usually slightly off to the right or the left. This has to be taken into consideration when your plastic surgeon creates a new belly button. I attempt to center the belly button. Many plastic surgeons try to make a very natural belly button by giving it a slight hooding. It has been my experience that this hooding rarely looks natural and takes away from the potential beautiful looks of a new belly button (neo-umbilicus). The opening to the new belly button should be neither too big nor too small since both of these choices again detract from an attractive belly button.
Technically, I use a vertical ellipse measuring 15 mm in vertical height and 8 mm in width. It is important to take all the fat off the bottom of the skin around the belly button for a distance of 20 mm. This allows the skin to indent in a very natural fashion since the belly button should have a gentle slope down to it from the tissue around, and not an abrupt step off. The scar around the neo-umbilicus should be deep inside the belly button, therefore not visible to the outside world leading to a more natural appearance. The way to do this once the surgeon has repaired the muscles of the abdominal wall, he or she should anchor the belly button at 3, 6, 9 and 12 o’clock to the fascia covering the muscles. This allows the defatted skin around the neo-umbilicus to be pulled downward leading to a hidden scar. The sutures that connect the abdominal skin to the edge of your old belly button should be below the surface, and only super glue should be used at the scar edge to prevent railroad tracking which is a dead giveaway for a tummy tuck.
A great looking belly button should be centered as much as possible, having a gentle slope down to its edge, and the scar should be hidden as much as possible inside the belly button.
The abdominoplasty incision scar should be hidden under the upper edge of one’s panty or bikini line, therefore the belly button is truly the key to a well done abdominoplasty. What is taken away during an abdominoplasty is, of course, important, but what is left after an abdominoplasty is more important. A great belly button gives you a great midriff. Feel free to visit our websites,
www.breastimplantcenterofhawaii.com
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