Mothering › Mothering Discussion Forums › Pregnancy and Birth › Birth and Beyond › so sick of my C-Section overhang belly!
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so sick of my C-Section overhang belly!

post #1 of 22
10/30/10 at 6:59pm
Thread Starter 
i am so sick of the c-section overhand belly i have. if i had been warned about this possible side effect of a c-section i probably would have fought harder to have a natural delivery and not let everyone push me into having a c-section.
argh. how many of you lady's had a c-section and also ended up with this flap of skin hanging down over the scar and on the pubic bone. please tell me i'm not the only one.....

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post #2 of 22
10/30/10 at 7:08pm
You are SO NOT alone my poor tummy suffered immensely with each pregnancy(2) and sadly there is nothing i can do to fix it, that once the muscles have been separated as much as mine have, i will forever bear the evidence of choice.
post #3 of 22
10/30/10 at 7:36pm
I am wondering if its more of a consequence of pregnancy than a c/s? I have had 2 c-sections and am lucky in that the scar is hardly noticable and my belly went back to flat. I'm not saying this to make you feel bad, just curious as to how a flap could be caused by an incision.
post #4 of 22
10/30/10 at 8:08pm
Thread Starter 
don't know. fair enough, i had three big babies, 8'14", 9'14" and 9'4" but i stayed slim and didn't have a massive belly in any of the pregnancies. plus my health visitor told me after wards when i showed her the skin flap that sometimes the nerves that connect to the tiny muscles under the skin don't reconnect when the wound heals and this is what causes the overhang. the mini muscles under the skin in that area don't work anymore.
i also don't have any feeling between my scar and bellybutton. it's weird when i can pinch myself and not feel a thing. alien...

maybe the fact that after my third c-section my incision opened up again after 4 days and got infected didn't help with the healing process....
three beautiful kids, but i still wish i could have my old belly back. wouldn't even mind still having the stretch marks (which i actually like having!)
post #5 of 22
10/30/10 at 8:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lotus.blossom View Post
I'm not saying this to make you feel bad, just curious as to how a flap could be caused by an incision.
From talking to a lot of women, it does seem to be much more common with c/s than without. I've been told that OBs frequently shove all the fat back in above the incision when they close, but I don't know if that's true or not (it "feels" true to me, based on both the overhang, and the rather flat and...strange condition of the skin below my incision).
post #6 of 22
10/30/10 at 8:50pm
I've only had vaginal births and have a fairly floppy belly, for whatever that's worth.
post #7 of 22
10/30/10 at 10:52pm
I have this too. It's called a "mother's apron". Bleh. From what I've read, in some women the damage to the muscle is so severe that no matter what you do this flap will remain, unless it's surgically corrected. My OB has had some women get their insurance to pay for a tummy tuck of sorts because of the damage caused by multiple c-sections.

I don't plan on having that surgery, as I do still want another child. But with my second section the flap has caused some complications, so I'm fearful of a third. I tried VBAC with my second, as it turns out I'm one of those rare cases where my pelvis just can't open enough for a baby.
post #8 of 22
10/30/10 at 11:00pm
This c/s "overhang" thing has always baffled me, honestly I am beginning to think that my incision was unusually low. It's not at all on what I would consider my belly. It's about 1" below the pubic hairline. I can't picture how any fat could hang there. I have plenty of belly fat, even when not pregnant, but it's not down there. Am I weird?
post #9 of 22
10/30/10 at 11:31pm
I have the same thing. It is very annoying. Although the "flap" is pretty small, I've heard it can get worse with each surgery. I also have a lot of site numbness and have had issues with nerve pain in my labia, which I was told could be a result of the surgery.

Also, my incision is very low, right in my pubic hairline. I think that is normal if you have a full-term c/s, like I did. I have heard that sometimes pre-term c/s (not classical incisions, transverse but just higher) need to be done higher up on the uterus because of the position of the baby. I cannot attest to the accuracy of that statement though.
post #10 of 22
10/30/10 at 11:35pm
I kinda reason that the overhang is because the fat was separated from the muscle during the c/s. Then its harder for the fat to go away because the blood flow just isn't there/ isn't as readily available as the rest of your fat. I have heard if you get down to almost no body fat your body does get around to eating that fat and the skin gets better, but still sagger from it taking so long.

it was so frustrating after DS when I got all the way down to a size 6 (which I'd only ever been once before and not for long) and my belly was the reason I couldn't fit into a smaller size, it was like folded up until my jeans and the rest of me was thin.
post #11 of 22
10/31/10 at 6:18am
Thread Starter 
i know what you are saying about the not fitting into pant's properly. i have my "kangaroo pouch" since the birth of my first child. about a year after my second child was born i had an awful problem with eating and became anorexic (still in treatment for this) and even at my skinniest i had my pouch to mess up every pants and anyway tight top...
it is very annoying when the rest of your body is slim and you still have that pouch hanging off your front.
plastic surgery is the only way to correct this and sadly here in irelad there is no way the health service will pay for it, even if it destroys you emotionally. even if you have private health insurance, rather than just use the public health service which every person is entitled to, chances are that your health insurance won't pay for it.
these skin reductions are paid for by the PHS for people who lost a lot of weight and have excess skin, i really think it should be done under the public health service for people who's loose skin was caused by pregnancy too.
post #12 of 22
10/31/10 at 2:54pm
I guess I can understand now. I haven't allowed myself to think about what goes on during the surgery!! Do they pull the muscles aside or cut them? Both of mine were emergent after failed natural labors. I guess I lucked out with my second surgeon. My scar looks better now than after my first. Although I do seem to have a little pad of fat under the incision on my pubic bone that wasn't there before....but its really only noticable to me.

I wonder if its dependant on where you gain weight? I have a tiny bit of leftover belly fat but its at least 6 inches above my incision, right at my belly button. I have no fat under that near my pelvis.
post #13 of 22
10/31/10 at 6:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lotus.blossom View Post

I wonder if its dependant on where you gain weight? I have a tiny bit of leftover belly fat but its at least 6 inches above my incision, right at my belly button. I have no fat under that near my pelvis.
This is almost exactly how mine is as well.
post #14 of 22
10/31/10 at 7:41pm
I have this little belly overhang as well. I'm still pretty recent though,so maybe some more of it will go away? There was a lot of swelling and lumpiness at first for a few weeks. My incision is also quite low,much lower then I thought it would be actually. I weight less now then I did prepregnancy and my waist is super tiny now,but I have the belly flap!
post #15 of 22
10/31/10 at 11:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lotus.blossom View Post
I wonder if its dependant on where you gain weight? I have a tiny bit of leftover belly fat but its at least 6 inches above my incision, right at my belly button. I have no fat under that near my pelvis.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ~Amy~ View Post
This is almost exactly how mine is as well.
This sounds more like a diastastis. I have that - still look pregnant, really. I also have the "flap". They're in two separate spots.
post #16 of 22
10/31/10 at 11:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Storm Bride View Post
This sounds more like a diastastis. I have that - still look pregnant, really. I also have the "flap". They're in two separate spots.
I think in my case, it's really just fat. I didn't still look pregnant. I did have diastastis and do again this time around, but weirdly, I've only ever had separation above my navel.
post #17 of 22
10/31/10 at 11:32pm
I wonder how it differs in regards to where your scar is... my scar is very high (halfway between my belly button and public hair line) and I have pretty low body fat, but because of the scar being where it is it creates a weird thing. Hard to describe, nothing *hangs* over the scar, but my stomach sticks out more over the scar, then the scar sucks my stomach back in, then it's flat until the public line. Makes pants fit weird.
post #18 of 22
11/1/10 at 1:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ~Amy~ View Post
This c/s "overhang" thing has always baffled me, honestly I am beginning to think that my incision was unusually low. It's not at all on what I would consider my belly. It's about 1" below the pubic hairline. I can't picture how any fat could hang there. I have plenty of belly fat, even when not pregnant, but it's not down there. Am I weird?
Uggh my first scar was like that, below the hairline by quite a bit, and had an overhang for 18 years, even when I was super thin from running. When I had my second c/s in May, the doc put the incision in a different place, about an inch and 1/2 above the first one. Literally- in surgery, right before she was about to cut, she says, "UM! We have a problem here! Your scar is in a terrible place, on your pelvic bone. I can't use it. No wonder you hurt so bad healing from that." She asked for permission to do a new one and I gave it. It did heal up quicker, and of course now two scars, but so far my shelf is waaaaaay better and I'm not quite back to pre pg weight yet.
post #19 of 22
11/1/10 at 4:25pm
I don't think I have diastasis recti either. My tummy is pretty flat and I sort of have ab lines down the sides, just a little extra bit of chub around the belly button, I can pinch it- its definitely above my ab muscles. It goes away when I watch what I am eating. (getting back to that )

I was worried about a diastasis so I did the tupler technique after each pregnancy.

Could the belly flap be related to your skin elasticity? Do those of you who have it, also have stretch marks? I managed to escape the stretch marks on my belly but have them all over my legs. Strange....but thats where I geneticly gain weight......
post #20 of 22
11/1/10 at 5:33pm
My flap got much worse after my second c/s. I was so shocked. I didn't think it could get any worse! I didn't get a single stretch mark or gain much weight. Mine goes down a little with weight loss but I still dream of getting a tummy tuck someday.
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Mothering › Mothering Discussion Forums › Pregnancy and Birth › Birth and Beyond › so sick of my C-Section overhang belly!