[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text module_class=”custom-post-title” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Black Han Sans|700||on|||||” header_text_align=”center” header_font_size=”46px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” custom_margin=”25px||5px||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||true|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”custom-post-title” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Black Han Sans|700||on|||||” header_text_align=”center” header_font_size=”46px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” custom_margin=”25px||5px||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||true|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Black Han Sans|||on|||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ header_4_font=”|||on|||||” header_4_text_align=”center” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
Words by Cassie Steer<\/strong><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/05\/GettyImages-2151834584-e1715270592751.jpg” alt=”Kim Kardashian Mummy makeover” title_text=”The 2024 Met Gala Celebrating %22Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion%22 – Arrivals” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Tummy tucks, boob jobs, facial rejuvenation.\u00a0 Postpartum surgery is on the rise and it\u2019s dragging the body confidence conversation backwards.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n When regaling the protracted horror story that serves as my firstborn\u2019s birth (not to pregnant women I might add), there\u2019s always the sense that it probably doesn\u2019t get much worse; the abridged version is an 18 hour labour, sepsis, emergency C section, dural puncture from the epidural, meningitis from the blood patch to close the hole in the membrane of my spinal cord culminating in a month-long stay in hospital in excruciating pain and not knowing if I would ever walk again\u2026.\u00a0 So, on discovering that searches for \u2018plastic surgery\u2019 soared by 72% following the Met Gala on May 6th with \u2018mommy makeovers\u2019 – a double whammy tummy tuck and boob job – increasing by 43%, it got me thinking about how my brittle post-partum self would have reacted to a barrage of shimmering, nearly-nude celebrity \u2018moms\u2019 with waists the size of polo mints. I suspect it wouldn\u2019t have helped.<\/p>\n In those dark\u00a0 – both figuratively and literally \u2013 hours and weeks that followed\u00a0 in the hospital and with no family nearby, like a malevolent mycelium, social media became the warped touchpoint that forged my connection to a world that I was at the very least, physically cut off from. Doused by a flurry of volatile hormones and copious pain relief drugs, I began obsessively charting the timelines of celebrity mothers and their rapidly diminishing waists all of which had seemingly slunk into their size 8 jeans a couple of weeks after popping out babies.\u00a0 Merely a lucky gene handout or had they, as Cardi B has openly owned\u00a0 up to having, had \u2018mommy makeover\u2019 surgery?<\/p>\n Few of us are immune to the comparison carousel that anyone with a phone is subjected to on an almost minute by minute basis, but at a time when women experience the biggest change their bodies will ever go through it\u2019s no surprise that it can reach fever pitch and it\u2019s also why it could well have been me furtively googling \u2018mummy makeover\u2019 had Kim Kardashian\u2019s waist been plastered over social medial when I was feeling at my lowest ebb. During those fragile first months I was shocked to discover that the tiny droplets of insecurity I thought I\u2019d well and truly shaken off in my twenties had in fact seemingly been suspended in time waiting to be stirred up and solidified by the likes of Kim et al.\u00a0<\/p>\n SUB-HEAD: The Rise Of The Met Gala Milf\u00a0<\/p>\n On the most superficial level (and arguably the level it\u2019s supposed to be viewed) the Met Gala is simply a razzmatazz of escapist fashion fantasy; a spectacle purposefully designed to invite ogling and dissection. But under the lens of an uptick in searches for plastic surgery it begins to feel a little more\u2026icky.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s rare that I get people in my clinic requesting to look like a certain celebrity as I think most people are realistic but subconsciously we can\u2019t help but be affected by images of the \u2018body beautiful\u2019 and this is a very real problem,\u201d says Mr Sharma who admits to spending a significant proportion of his time telling women that they don\u2019t need surgery they\u2019re asking for. \u201cThe expectation of how women think they should look following childbirth is totally unrealistic. Apart from a few glimpses of naked bodies in a changing room \u2013 which is still a select group of people \u2013 most women have no idea of what normal naked bodies look like. Your points of reference are only what you see in the media and on social media which is not an accurate representation of reality.\u201d Kim Kardashian\u2019s waist for example? Not \u2018normal\u2019.<\/p>\n Celebrities extol that they\u2019ve never felt so beautiful\/empowered\/fulfilled as when they were pregnant, but it\u2019s not until recently that we\u2019re beginning to see the other side of the (deflated) bump. As well as A-listers such as Kourtey Kardashian admitting it\u2019s hard work to regain any semblance of their pre-pregnancy bodies (and there has been a refreshing slew of post-partum selfies from the likes of Binky Felstead, Katy Perry and Ashley Graham showing still-present bumps, slivers of fresh, pink stretch marks and surgical pants (although they\u2019re usually still attributed as \u2018brave\u2019 rather than \u2018normal\u2019).<\/p>\n But then the Met Gala came along and we have seemingly undone decades of work.\u00a0 Clothes so restrictive that grown women had to be carried up stairs hark back to Victorian sensibilities of dress where womenswear was designed to inhibit movement and amplify \u2018frivolity, delicacy, inactivity and submissiveness\u2019; the antithesis to what the modern mother supposedly represents.<\/p>\n The uptick in searches for \u2018mummy make overs\u2019 as a direct reaction to the Met Gala demonstrates that the body positivity messaging we\u2019ve been seeing for over a decade now either isn\u2019t getting through or the said sleep-deprived, hormone-addled \u2018mummies\u2019 are a particularly vulnerable sector of society. Whether or not they\u2019re following through with surgery (tummy tucks and boob jobs assume top spots in the 10 most popular cosmetic procedures of 2023 according to British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons) is almost irrelevant, it\u2019s the fact that we\u2019re seeing a direct increase in searches following the Met Gala imagery which marks a worrying shift.<\/p>\n The fact that we\u2019re even having to consider our bodies at a time when they have created and birthed an entire human being let alone attributing a term to it (and one that feels nauseatingly noughties-reality-tv-show at that) is a depressing reflection of how we seem to be backsliding into that space. Whilst the conversation about \u2018bouncing back\u2019 is certainly not new, it\u2019s one I had hoped had been left behind alongside tinted glasses and butterfly clips. SUB-HEAD: What is a \u2018mummy makeover\u2019? SUB-HEAD: Mummy makeover surgery; the pros and cons<\/p>\n Whilst I find the ongoing conversation about mother\u2019s bodies a tad depressing, I am also firmly on the side of doing whatever makes you feel your most confident self, which my friend whose entire personality has blossomed since having a tummy tuck is testament to. One flipside to the body confidence conversation is the feeling that we\u2019re no longer allowed to feel depressed about being left with skin the consistency of stretched pizza dough when we\u2019re supposed to be simply appreciating the \u2018amazing bodies\u2019 that brought about life.<\/p>\n \u201cThese surgeries can be transformative with benefits both physically e.g. restoration of abdominal wall integrity or reduction of heavy breasts and psychologically in terms of restoring body confidence or reducing self-consciousness.\u201d Says Nugent. \u201cHowever, they need to be properly planned and undertaken by qualified plastic surgeons in safe, regulated hospital environments,\u201d she warns. \u201cBefore planning such surgery, women should be at least six months after pregnancy and\/or breastfeeding are finished, body changes related to these, and weight changes should have stabilised and weight should be at a healthy level. It is important to consider future pregnancies as well as it is better to postpone this type of surgery until after your family is complete. Finally, choose the surgeon carefully!\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ divider_position=”center” divider_weight=”2px” module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-texts” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|||on|||||” text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Photo: <\/b>Getty<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the number of women on the drug reporting unplanned pregnancies rises, Zoe Beaty investigates the phenomenon \u2013 and its dangers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"guestgrazia","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3055"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3145,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055\/revisions\/3145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cAs a doctor, I take particular issue with the nomenclature,\u201d says Consultant Plastic Surgeon at the Harley Medical Group https:\/\/www.harleymedical.co.uk Mr Pundrique Sharma. \u201cCalling it a \u2018mummy makeover\u2019 derogates the fact that this is still serious surgery that carries all the associated risks. It\u2019s a lot to take on in one go and challenges you physiologically \u2013 it\u2019s not the same as getting a facial.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Mummy makeover\u2019 is an umbrella term and can cover a range of aesthetic (cosmetic) plastic surgery procedures designed for breast and body changes that persist after pregnancy and breastfeeding,\u201d says\u00a0 Nora Nugent, the Vice President of British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS). \u201cUsually, it refers to a combination of abdominoplasty (tummy tuck) and breast surgery (augmentation, lift or reduction surgery). But other surgery such as labiaplasty or facial rejuvenation procedures can also be included. The aim is to treat the persistent changes to a woman\u2019s body after pregnancy such as rectus muscle separation and loose skin in the tummy or changes in size or sagging of breasts.\u201d<\/p>\n