Location of Tummy Tuck Skin Incisions

Incision for the removal of skin and adipose tissue

There are actual a few choices for the incisions.

If there are existing incisions, your plastic surgeon may consider either excising the old incision or going through the old incision.  Existing incisions would be possibly from a cesarean section.

Most Tummy Tuck incisions go from left to right.  Some are shorter than other incisions.  But for most patients our incisions go from one side to the other and we try to hide them near or below underwear/bikini lines whenever possible

Dog ears at the ends of Tummy Tuck incisions?

At the sides of the incision, some challenges exist such as bump that can form.  Sometimes we call these dog ears.  They are usually managed at the initial operation by some further excision, but sometimes a stage procedure is needed to remove these at a later date and sometimes these “dog ears” disappear on their own.

All around incision? – like a belt

For some other patients, a tummy tuck is done in the front and then the same type of procedure is done on the back side, and this results in something known as a belt-lipectomy.  We’ll talk about this procedure in another page.  Belt-lipectomy, like it sounds, is a all around procedure, like a belt that goes around the body.

Vertical Incision?

There may be some patients who need a skin incision vertically – up and down, this is possibly needed for someone with extremely loose skin.  For some patients it goes the full length of the abdomen and for some it is only from the belly button down.

This is rare in our practice as we try to keep this type of incision to a minimum.

Belly button incision – an outline of the belly button.

Because of the amount of skin and adipose tissue which we pull down, the belly button needs to be re-arranged a bit.  The stalk of the belly button stays in place but the skin surface – a new “button hole” needs to be made, and we try to keep this on the narrow side.  Thus when we’re done, there is a separate incision which outlines the belly button

The decision making process of incision placement in Tummy Tuck surgery is complex.

There is a lot more that goes into the decision making process of placement of incisions, but this page was designed to give you a brief introduction and overview of the incisions used for Tummy Tuck surgeries.  At your consultation with your surgeon, much of this will be discussed.