Excellence in Orange County Mommy Makeover

Finding the answers to your questions is the beginning of your cosmetic surgery journey, and Joseph T Cruise, MD takes the time to discuss and address some of the most important topics, such as:

• What is a mommy make over?
  Joseph T Cruise, MD outlines the different possibilities. At its core, a mommy make over combines abdominal and breast rejuvenation surgeries in a single surgical setting.
• Do I need a tummy tuck?
  This section details when Joseph T Cruise, MD believes a tummy tuck is necessary and when he recommends liposuction alone.
• Do I need a breast lift or will implants alone be OK?
  This section details when a woman may want to consider a breast lift in addition to a breast augmentation. Find out about different types of breast lift as well.
• Mommy make over before and after pictures
  Browse the gallery of before and after photos to see women with concerns similar to yours and the results they obtained.
• Complications, risks, recovery and safety
  Find out some of the potential complications of breast and abdominal rejuvenation procedures, and what to expect during the recovery process.
• Making a Mommy makeover affordable
  Learn more about financing options available for mommy makeovers.

Joseph T Cruise, MD wants to help you understand how to identify your most significant concerns with your body, and to inform you of the plastic surgery options available to address your concerns. He meets with every patient in his Newport Beach office, where you can further consult with him one on one during your Mommy make over scheduling process.

Overview of Mommy Makeover

Having children takes a toll on every mother’s body. Although many of the changes that occur to a woman’s physique return to a pre-pregnancy state after the child is born, some of them don’t and this can leave a mother frustrated at losing the body of her youth.

Joseph T Cruise, MD in Orange County, CA understands how emotional the physical results of bearing children can be – on one hand, your child is precious and worth every sacrifice, but on the other hand, you miss the body you used to have.

He has developed a solution: a customizable Mommy Make Over that allows you to combine the right breast rejuvenation and abdominoplasty or liposuction procedures to get back – or enhance – the body you used to have.

Abdominal Changes with Pregnancy

In order to accommodate for your growing child, your abdomen stretches considerably during pregnancy. All of your organs, including your muscles and skin, are affected by this stretching, and after birth they may have trouble returning to their pre-pregnancy size.

In some women, the abdominal muscles separate during pregnancy and do not re-connect afterward, which permanently weakens stomach muscles and isn’t corrected by exercise. Skin with weak  elasticity may not “snap back” to its original size, and women may be left with stretch marks or loose abdominal skin.

In order to correct these problems, some women choose to undergo cosmetic surgery to rejoin stomach muscles (muscle suspension) and to remove excess skin.

Knowing that patients want pleasing visual plastic surgery results, Joseph T Cruise, MD keeps his abdominoplasty incisions as low as possible, providing each patient a very natural-looking belly button so no one will notice she’s had a Mommy make over.

Joseph T Cruise, MD, Newport Beach, illustrates muscle tightening and tummy tuck procedure in the following examples.

Rectus Muscle before and after Abdominoplasty
Separated Muscles after Pregnancy	Muscles Restored to their Pre-pregnancy Position
Before After	Before After
Before After	Before After
Standard Abdominoplasty 28-y-o. Loose abdominal skin after 2 children. Improved abdominal contour with standard tummy tuck, shown 5 weeks after surgery. Mini Tummy Tuck with Umbilicus Release 39-y-o. Works out frequently, but couldn’t correct loose skin and stretch marks. She is shown three months after a mini tummy tuck.   Belly Buttons Post Tummy Tuck
Standard way of placing an incision around the opening for the belly button. The abdominoplasty removes the skin and flattens the abdomen, but if the belly button has a scar around it, it is hard to expose it without people noticing it.	Joseph T Cruise, MD has modified his way of re-creating belly buttons. It is almost impossible to tell that this patient had a tummy tuck. She can wear a bikini and no one would notice it.
Before After	Before After

Correction of Minor Sagginess with Augmentation

A mother of 2 who lost a significant amount of breast tissue, resulting in sagginess. Corrected with a breast augmentation alone.

Breast Changes with Pregnancy

Women often complain about a loss of breast volume after children. Particularly, many women are frustrated that the changing shape of their breasts throughout pregnancy and nursing results in sagginess and an ultimately unsatisfying size and shape. Breast skin stretches and can bear stretch marks as well.

Some women believe that a breast augmentation will correct this sagginess and return their breasts to a more youthful, perkier position. For women with minor sag this may be true and breast implants may be able to restore their breast position to a pre-pregnancy look.