Pregnancy as a tissue expander in the correction of a scar deformity

Barbara Del Frari1, Petra Pülzl, Thomas Schoeller

  • 1Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Leopold-Franzens University, Innsbruck, Austria. Barbara.Del-Frari@uibk.ac.at

Tissue expansion is an established method for the correction of scars and tissue defects. During pregnancy the abdominal skin becomes gradually stretched over the growing uterus, providing a "natural" tissue expander. We present a case of a woman with posttraumatic scarring of the lower abdomen and thigh where tissue expansion during pregnancy was successfully used for scar correction.