Mommy Makeover in Augusta, GA

What is a mommy makeover?

A mommy makeover is a marketing term, not a defined operation. What it actually means is a combination of breast and abdominal procedures, customized to the patient and performed in a single trip to the operating room under one anesthetic.

That framing matters, because there is no standard package and you should be suspicious of any practice that sells one. The right combination for you depends entirely on what pregnancy, delivery, and breastfeeding actually did to your body.

The components a surgeon draws from:

• Tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) — removes loose lower-abdominal skin and stretch marks and repairs diastasis recti, the separation of the abdominal muscles down the midline. This is the component almost every mommy makeover includes, because it addresses the two things nothing else can: skin that will not retract and a muscle wall that will not close.
• Breast augmentation — restores volume lost after breastfeeding, using implants.
• Breast lift (mastopexy) — raises breasts that have descended, repositions the nipple, removes excess skin. Often combined with an implant when both position and volume are gone.
• Breast reduction — for the smaller group of patients whose breasts stayed larger and heavier.
• Liposuction — of the flanks, upper abdomen, or thighs, to blend the contour. Very commonly added.

The most frequent combination in practice is a full tummy tuck with muscle repair, a breast lift with implants, and liposuction of the flanks.

Who is a good candidate?

Good candidates are healthy, finished having children, at a stable weight, and clear about what bothers them. The specific gates that surgeons apply:

• At least six months postpartum, and ideally longer.
• Finished breastfeeding for three to six months. Breast tissue keeps involuting and changing for months after you stop nursing. Operating during that window means the surgeon is shaping a moving target, and the result can look different a year later.
• At a stable weight you can maintain. Not a goal weight you are still chasing. Surgeons commonly want you within 15 to 20 pounds of stable, and many apply a BMI cutoff — often around 30 to 35 — because complication rates climb steeply above it.
• Done having children. A subsequent pregnancy stretches the skin again and can tear the rectus repair. It is safe; it just undoes the work.
• A nonsmoker. Both the tummy tuck flap and a lifted nipple depend on marginal blood supply. Nicotine is the single largest modifiable risk factor for the two worst complications on this page: skin necrosis and nipple loss. Most surgeons require four to six weeks nicotine-free before and after, and many test.
• Realistically supported at home. You will not be able to lift a toddler for four to six weeks. If you cannot arrange that, you are not ready to schedule, no matter how ready your body is.

What to expect during the procedure

A combined mommy makeover is a long operation — typically four to six hours under general anesthesia, sometimes longer. Because of the length, surgeons apply extra scrutiny to safety:

• Operative time limits. Many surgeons cap combined cosmetic cases at around six hours, because complication rates — particularly blood clots — rise with time under anesthesia. If your wish list would take eight hours, a good surgeon will tell you to stage it, not squeeze it.
• Clot prevention. Sequential compression devices on the legs, early ambulation, and in higher-risk patients, chemical prophylaxis. Ask about this specifically.
• Overnight monitoring. Many practices keep combined-case patients overnight, either in a surgical facility or with a nurse at home. This is a good sign, not an upsell.

The order of operations is usually breast first, then abdomen, so the abdominal closure — the part under the most tension — is done last. Drains are typically placed in the abdomen and stay in for one to two weeks. You wake up in a compression garment and a surgical bra.

Recovery timeline

This is the hardest recovery on this site. You are healing two major surgical sites at once, and you cannot use your arms or your core.

• Days 1–4. The worst of it. Abdominal tightness and muscle spasms from the plication, plus chest tightness from the breast work. You will walk hunched forward. You cannot push yourself up out of bed with your arms and you cannot sit up with your core — this is exactly why you need someone with you. Prescription pain medication and often muscle relaxants. Walk short distances every couple of hours anyway; it is the single best thing you can do to avoid a clot.
• Days 5–10. Pain drops off substantially. Drains are recorded and typically removed somewhere in this window. Still bent at the waist, straightening a little each day. Full-time help at home is still realistic.
• Weeks 2–3. Standing upright. Some patients with desk jobs go back late in week two, but three weeks is the more common and more honest number. No lifting over about 10 pounds — which means no picking up a small child. This is the restriction patients underestimate and the one that most often gets violated.
• Weeks 4–6. Light cardio and walking cleared around weeks three to four. Compression garment and surgical bra still worn most of the day. Lifting and core work stay off-limits until six weeks minimum, because the muscle repair sutures need that time.
• Weeks 6–8. Full exercise typically cleared, including core and upper body. This is the earliest anything strenuous is safe.
• Months 3–6. Swelling resolves — abdominal swelling in particular is stubborn and worse in the evening. Breasts settle into final position. Numbness across the lower abdomen slowly improves and may never fully resolve.
• Months 6–12. Final contour. Scars fade from red and raised to flat and pale.

How much does a mommy makeover cost in Augusta?

There is no ASPS average for a “mommy makeover,” because ASPS tracks defined procedures and this is a combination. Any site that quotes you a single national average for it is making it up.

Here is the honest math, built from published sources.

ASPS national average surgeon fees (surgeon’s fee only — each of these pages states explicitly that it excludes anesthesia, operating room, and related expenses):

Component	ASPS average surgeon fee
Tummy tuck	$8,174
Breast augmentation with implants	$4,875
Breast lift	$6,816
Liposuction	$4,711

A tummy tuck plus a breast augmentation is $13,049 in surgeon fees alone. A tummy tuck plus a lift with implants is higher still. Then add one set of anesthesia and facility fees — for a four-to-six-hour case, commonly $3,000 to $5,000 combined — plus implants, garments, drains, labs, and follow-ups.

Published local prices support the same picture. Augusta Plastic Surgery publishes $9,000–$11,000+ for abdominoplasty, $7,800+ for silicone breast implants, $8,500+ for a breast lift, and $13,000+ for a lift with silicone implants.

A realistic mommy makeover total in Augusta runs about $12,000 to $22,000, with a tummy-tuck-plus-augmentation at the lower end and a tummy tuck plus lift-with-implants plus liposuction at the upper end.

The combining discount is real. You pay one anesthesia fee and one facility fee instead of two. You buy one set of garments, do one set of pre-op labs, and take one recovery instead of two. Staging the same procedures six months apart typically costs several thousand dollars more and doubles your time off work. The counterargument is safety: longer operations carry higher risk, and there is a point past which a responsible surgeon will insist on staging. Let the surgeon draw that line, not the invoice.

Ask for the quote itemized: surgeon fee per component, anesthesia, facility, implants, garments, drains, follow-ups. And ask the revision question — with this many incisions, minor revisions (a dog-ear, a scar, an asymmetry) are common enough that the policy matters.

Nearly every Augusta-area practice offers CareCredit or PatientFi. These are consumer loans with interest; read what the rate becomes after any promotional period.

How to choose a surgeon in Augusta

Verify certification by the American Board of Plastic Surgery (ABPS) — the only ABMS-recognized board covering plastic surgery of the whole body. Confirm it yourself at certificationmatters.org. Georgia does not restrict who may advertise cosmetic surgery.

Confirm facility accreditation and anesthesia coverage. For a four-to-six-hour combined general anesthetic, you want an AAAASF-, AAAHC-, or Joint Commission-accredited facility, a hospital, or a licensed surgery center, with a board-certified anesthesiologist or a supervised CRNA. Ask what their plan is if you need to stay overnight.

Ask about their combined-case time limit and clot protocol. This is the question that separates a surgeon thinking about your safety from one thinking about your booking. A good answer includes an operative time ceiling, compression devices, early ambulation, and risk-scored chemoprophylaxis.

Ask them to talk you out of something. A surgeon who agrees to every item on your list without discussing whether it should be staged is not managing your risk.

Look at photos of patients who started where you are — similar BMI, similar number of pregnancies, similar breast starting point — at six months or more.

Ask what happens if you get pregnant again. The honest answer is “it will partially undo this,” and a surgeon who says otherwise is not being straight with you.

Risks and complications

A mommy makeover stacks the risks of its components, and combining procedures raises some of them beyond the simple sum.

• Blood clots (DVT and pulmonary embolism). The most serious risk, and it is elevated here by long operative time, abdominal surgery, and the postpartum population’s baseline risk. PE can be fatal. This is the risk that justifies compression devices, early walking, and a surgeon willing to say no to an eight-hour case.
• Seroma under the abdominal flap — the most common complication of the tummy tuck component. May need repeated drainage.
• Wound healing problems and skin necrosis, especially at the center of the abdominal incision and at the T-junction of a breast lift, both of which sit where blood supply is weakest and tension is highest. Massively increased by smoking.
• Nipple or areola necrosis if a lift is part of the plan.
• Infection, hematoma, and the possibility of a return to the operating room.
• Permanent numbness across the lower abdomen and altered or lost nipple sensation.
• Scarring. A hip-to-hip abdominal scar, a scar around the navel, and breast scars. Widening, thickening, and hypertrophic or keloid scarring are all possible and are more likely in patients with darker skin.
• Asymmetry — of the breasts, the navel, or the abdominal contour.
• Contour irregularity from the liposuction component.
• Implant-specific risks if implants are used: capsular contracture, rupture, malposition, rippling, and the rare BIA-ALCL associated with textured implants.
• Anesthesia risks, which rise with duration.
• Reoperation. With this many incisions and this much reshaping, minor revision surgery is common. Budget for the possibility.
• Recurrence with future pregnancy or significant weight change.

The complication list is long because the operation is big. A surgeon who minimizes it is not the one you want.