Understanding Drains After Plastic Surgery
Thu 22nd Oct 2026
After your plastic surgery procedure, you may have surgical drains placed for a short period. While they may feel a little strange, they’re temporary and can play a vital role in preventing fluid buildup during the early stages of healing, which can help reduce the risk of certain complications. Here’s what you need to know.
What Are Surgical Drains?
A surgical drain is a small, flexible tube placed near an incision. It moves fluid away from your wound after surgery.
After surgery, it is normal for the tissues around the surgical site to ooze some blood, lymphatic fluid and other wound fluid as part of the healing process. This is a normal, healthy part of healing.
Placing a surgical drain in the area helps prevent fluid buildup and may reduce complications. Removing this fluid helps prevent it from accumulating around the surgical site and can support the healing process.
There are different types of drains, but most drains used in Australia today are silicone-based tubes with an attached suction bag (such as Jackson-Pratt or bulb drains, or silicone channel/Blake drains).
These drains have an open-ended part that goes inside your wound and a closed part outside your body that collects the drainage. The drainage bag typically has a suction mechanism that helps remove excess fluid from the surgical site.
Surgical drains are used to:
- Help prevent fluid buildup: By removing excess blood and other wound fluid, some surgeons believe surgical drains can help minimise the risk of fluid collections such as seromas and haematomas.
- Help minimise the risk of infection: Fluid that accumulates around the surgical site can provide an environment where bacteria can grow. By helping remove this fluid, surgical drains may help reduce the risk of infection.
- Support healing: By preventing excess fluid from accumulating around the surgical site, drains can help create an environment that supports healing.
Which Plastic Surgery Procedures May Require Drains?
Many procedures use surgical drains, and generally, most Body Contouring procedures require drains. These include:
- Breast Implant Removal
- Breast Lift
- Breast Reduction
- Abdominoplasties
- Thigh Lift (Lipectomy)
- Arm Lift (Brachioplasty)
- Upper Body Lift (Bra Lipectomy)
- Buttock Lift
- Belt Lipectomy (Lower Body Lift)
Where Are Surgical Drains Positioned?
Surgical drain placement depends on the procedure performed and Dr Dona’s surgical assessment. If drains are required, we will discuss their anticipated placement with you before surgery.
Following certain breast procedures, drains are typically positioned towards the outer chest, near the underarm area. After a Tummy Tuck (Abdominoplasty), two drains are commonly placed below the surgical incision line, toward the pubic region.
The number and positioning of drains may vary depending on the surgical technique and individual patient requirements.
How Long Should Surgical Drains Stay In?
For most of Dr Dona’s surgical procedures that require drains, they generally remain in place for up to 48 hours. In some circumstances, drains may need to remain in place for longer, depending on the procedure performed and your individual post-operative assessment.
Drains are typically removed before you leave the hospital.
The Fear of Drains
Unfortunately, many surgeons keep drains in for an extended period, often up to two weeks. This means the patient must remain in hospital longer, or nurse a drain at home for those two weeks.
Dr Dona does not do this and believes this practice has no value in modern-day plastic surgery and can cause more harm than good.
When used for certain surgical procedures, drains allow immediate post-surgical inflammatory exudate from internal surgical surfaces to be removed from the body rather than accumulate. However, this should typically not be required after the first 48 hours or so.
After that, assuming surgery and aftercare are optimal, extended drain use does NOT prevent seromas. In this situation, the extended use of drains is simply the surgeon accepting their patient has a seroma, and they are merely treating it.
Also, Dr Dona does not believe extended drain use prevents haematomas.
Going Home with Drains
Although uncommon, some patients may be discharged from hospital with surgical drains still in place. This is typically for those breast reduction patients who do not need to stay in hospital overnight, but he believes they would benefit from having a drain for 24-48 hours. If this applies to you, your nursing team will provide instructions on how to care for and manage your drains at home.
Your post-operative appointments generally commence on the day of hospital discharge or, at the latest, the following day. Your nursing team will assess your recovery during these appointments and arrange drain removal when clinically appropriate.
Contact our clinic promptly if you experience the following:
- Fever
- Redness, swelling or warmth
- Increased pain in your surgical area
- Red streaks coming from the site
- Drainage that is thick, green or smelly
Also, call the clinic if your drain stops working or there is a sign of complication, such as:
- Your drain slips out of the wound
- Your stitches come loose
- Fluid seeps out of the incision site
- Your drain stops pulling fluid out
- Your drainage increases (instead of decreases) for two days straight
The Removal Process
Your nursing team generally removes surgical drains during a post-operative appointment once they are no longer clinically required.
During removal, your nurse will clean the area with an antiseptic solution and carefully remove the suture securing the drain. The drainage tubing is then gently withdrawn, and you may feel a brief pulling sensation. However, it is not painful.
Once the drain has been removed, a sterile dressing is applied to protect the site while the small opening closes and heals. Your nursing team will provide any additional wound care instructions as required.
It is normal for the drain site to ooze a bit for the first 24 hours after removal.
