Tummy Tuck Surgery with Umbilical Float

Mr Richards the surgical director of Aurora Clinics in the UK describes demonstrates tummy tuck surgery. In this case mini-tummy tuck surgery was performed with no incision around the umbilicus. He discusses the reasons for using this technique rather than a standard tummy tuck surgery. For more information or should you wish to book a FREE Consultation with our specialist plastic surgeon, please call us on 01844 214362.

Tummy Tuck Surgery With Umbilical Float

Hello. My name is Adrian Richards. I’m a plastic surgeon based in the United Kingdom, and I’m the Surgical Director of Aurora Clinics. Today I’m going to be talking you through an operation I did on this lady recently, which is a mini abdominoplasty procedure. She doesn’t have much tissue excess in the central part of her tummy, but she does have some in the flanks, and this is why I’m going to perform a mini abdominoplasty rather than a full abdominoplasty.

From the side, we can see that she does have some abdominal laxity, particularly in the lower part of the tummy, and I’m going to address this by repairing the muscles in this region.

Here are my markings. As you can see, I’m leaving the tissue between the tummy button and my scar, and that’s what makes this a mini tummy tuck rather than a full tummy tuck.

Here I am just cutting through the skin. I do it initially centrally.  I’ve put local anaesthetic in the area so it will be numb and with adrenaline so it’ll minimise bleeding. Here I am just on the side completing the cut.

The next stage really is just to elevate the skin off the rectus fascia. In this case, I’m going to isolate the tummy button from below. This is the stalk of the umbilicus which I’m going to divide. As you can see here, I’ve divided it from inside. In a traditional abdominoplasty, it would be divided from outside.

Here are the muscles I’m going to repair. As you can see here, I am just drawing along the side of the muscles, and I’m going to draw these together with my stitches. I’ve done that principally in the lower part of the tummy because that’s where the laxity was.

Here I’m just showing you where the tummy button is coming down to. So here it is before, and I’m just bringing it down slightly in the midline. Here you go, that’s where the tummy button is going to go. It looks quite natural slightly lower.

The next stage is really to reattach the tummy button from inside and then insert some plication stitches, which I’ve done here, which prevent fluid forming between the flap and the rectus fascia.

I then remove the skin. I like to do this centrally. It helps me make everything nice and symmetrical, and I can just check that that all fits nicely. Then I’ll remove the skin in two halves. I’ll measure and weigh these two halves to make sure they’re absolutely symmetrical. The vertical amount of skin removed in this case was approximately ten centimetres.

I’m just going to complete the removal of tissue from the side here. I’ll do exactly the same on both sides and remove that tissue. In this case, I’m actually cutting slightly inside my marks as I’ve reassessed this during the operation and adjusted accordingly. I’ll just remove all of that skin.

I then sew up the area in three layers. This is the middle layer going in. You can see it’s very important to get a good tension free closure on the area because I don’t want any tension on my stitches.

Here I am just performing some liposuction on the flanks to reduce those. This is the final layer of stitching, which is a subcuticular absorbable stitch which will just need to be trimmed at the ends but won’t need to be removed. This gives the best scar in my opinion. I don’t use any clips or any of those old fashioned cross stitches.

You can see here that’s one side completed with a drain replaced. Then I’ll do exactly the same on the other side. I also put tissue glue, Dermabond tissue glue, on the wounds which seals the wound and allows patients to shower from the first and second days following surgery as the wounds are sealed.

You’ll see here in a second, this is the skin I’ve removed from both sides, nice and symmetrical and slightly longer than a normal tummy tuck.

Thank you very much for watching this video. If you’d like any information about tummy tucks or any other form of plastic or cosmetic surgery, please contact us either via our website, which is Aurora-Clinics.co.uk, or by our phone number, 01844 214362. Thank you for watching.