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Belly Buttons After Pregnancy

Mommy, Why Does Yours Look Like That?

By Jenn Director Knudsen

Recently, I stepped out of the shower to find my youngest daughter, 3, contemplating my dripping wet, naked body. She inhaled, as if to speak, and I braced myself for another of her many questions about pubic hair.

She did ask a question, but it wasn't the one I expected.

"Mommy, why do you have crumbs in your belly button?"

Oh no, I thought. I've been lax again in cleaning out my navel, once so taut and easily accessible, and now, post two children, less taut and not so easy to access with a cotton swab (or two).

In fact, now that I've carried two babies to term, my belly button more closely resembles a partially closed eyelid; my navel looks like it's winking at you.

And I am not alone! Either with my condition of having a belly button that's lost all its elasticity or with having curious children who wonder at its droopiness.

It's obvious that pregnancy stretches the skin and that it tries to (often unsuccessfully) return to its pre-partum look and shape after the baby is born. But how do you explain that to a young child?

Just imagine the tangents you'll be forced to ramble on to, when all your child wanted – and needed – to know was why your belly button doesn't look like hers. And why, in fact, it looks kind of odd.

When you were in your mom's uterus, the umbilical cord that provided you nutrients entered your fetal body at the point of your present-day belly button. From that site, the cord went deep into your body, terminating inside the liver, says Dr. Andrew Mark Klapper, a Manhattan-based plastic surgeon in private practice and a member of the American Board of Plastic Surgery.

So a belly button really is a stalk; after birth it migrates up to the surface of the abdomen and simply becomes a weak skin layer somewhat in the center of your tummy.

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