Loose tummy skin?

[Myira]

20 months PP, I finally am back to my pre-pregnancy weight. But my lower tummy is still bulging and sits like a little pooch above the pantyline and it makes me wonder if most of it is just from loose skin there.

Can you do anything to reduce or tone it? Or it just stays?

[Katigre]

I've got looser skin but my tummy doesn't pooch - I would think you can tone the bulge so that it is flatter.

Did you have a csection? My friends who had C's all have tummy pooches due to how the surgery affected their stomach.

I have heard great things about "Lose Your Mummy Tummy" book/exercises and I also found good success with Pilates for elongating and flattening my tummy.

[luckytwenty]

I had that (and had two c-sections). I lost a lot more weight beyond my pre-pregnancy weight and it became a lot less noticable, but it was still there.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I got so skinny after ds1 but I still had extra skin. I have it now with ds2 and he is 2.5yo. It's driving me batty b/c I can't see how I can really tone skin. Like I said, after ds1 I was really skinny, flat tummy and all, yet there was still some loose skin. I did not have a c-section and it didn't pooch, just sits there.

Beth

[sste]

I had a c-section but no pooch . . . my ob did a very, very low cut (I seem to recall through a haze of drugs her saying it affects the muscles less that way and that she hit very little muscle).

However, I do have loose skin . . . I only notice it if I bend over but it drives me crazy.

[Myira]

I didn't have a c-section, but still I have it.

[arivecchi]

I didn't have a c-section, but still I have it.

Ugh and ugh.

[daisymommy]

Yep, I've lost an extra 25 lbs. beyond my pregnancy weight, and I've got saggy belly skin too. I guess once you stretch out your tummy so much to fit a whole baby inside, it's not all going to go back. It's like a rubber band that get's stretched out so much it can't snap back. Bummer.

[twowhat?]

Yup. I had a c-section, and twins, and I am super skinny so it's a combo of the scar from the surgery (over which all the skin hangs), the over-stretched skin (your skin will only "bounce back" up to a point if it's been really overstretched), and diastasis recti. I am doomed to live with it because I'm not willing to go through a tummy tuck. I've adjusted my entire wardrobe accordingly

[brittone2]

I've had loose wrinkly belly skin ever since DS1's birth and 6.5 years later it is still there (and I've had two more kids). I also have a diastasis recti which is a split in the ab muscles that kinda gives a place for organs, etc. to kinda protrude a bit. Look up "Tupler Mummy Tummy"...her sites explain diastasis recti well. It is very, very common post partum. You can do exercises to close it if you have one (the right exercises; straight old crunches will make a D.R. worse, not better) or ideally work with a physical therapist specializing in post partum issues. If you are dealing with a diastasis recti issue splinting and working on the transverse abs are what is thought to work best.

I always get back down to my normal weight by 1 year post partum (and am not overweight to start with) but I still have the wrinkly belly skin. I have a short torso so when I'm pg my belly gets pushed *waaaay* out in front of me and my skin stretches a lot I guess. I have twin skin sans twins, unfortunately!