Purpose of Suturing Large Wounds

Surgeons can hardly claim credit for the body's awesome capacity to heal itself, but by aiding the body through suturing, they can help yield quicker, safer and more attractive outcomes.

Wound Healing

• To heal a wound, the human body mobilizes many different blood cells, proteins and myriad other factors, consuming lots of energy and nutrients, observes the book "Medical-Surgical Nursing."

Aims

• Suturing large wounds facilitates and shortens the body's healing process, reduces risk of infection and helps prevent later disfigurement.

Clotting

• By bringing the edges of the wound together, suturing helps fibrin, a component of blood coagulation, to form a framework for molecules that will eventually fill the wound, according to the book "Understanding Pathophysiology."

Infection

• By expediting the clotting process, suturing helps establish a barrier to bacterial invasion, note Sue Huether, Ph.D., and Kathryn McCance, Ph.D.

Contraction

• With or without suturing, certain cells involved in filling the wound pull its edges together--a natural process called contraction, which is crucial to preventing infection, according to the book "Medical-Surgical Nursing."

Cosmetics

• If allowed to occur across a large wound, contraction can cause serious cosmetic deformities. Suturing reduces that risk by minimizing the space over which contraction occurs, notes the book "Understanding Pathophysiology."