THE REAL POST-BABY BELLY
This post is hard for me to to write because I spend so much time trying to hide what I am about to show you. I’m going to do this because I am so angry.
I am so angry at the extraordinary amount of pressure on women to lose their “baby weight”. So much so, that celebrities are now signing on with Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and other weight loss programs, while they are still pregnant or just after giving birth.
These women are so aware of the pressure on them to be skinny, to erase any sign they just birthed a human being, that they start buying bikinis and booking celebrity photographers for their “Post-baby Miracle Body” magazine cover from the moment they pee on their pregnancy test stick.
They are also desperate for press and the cash that goes along with it, but that’s another blog post.
Mariah Carey and Mel B, aka Scary Spice, were both named as Jenny Craig Ambassadors within three months of giving birth, in Mel B’s case it was less than six weeks.
And earlier this week, Jessica Simpson was reported to have signed a multi-million dollar deal with Weight Watchers to help her shed her baby weight. This is of course after she gives birth.
That’s right, she has not even birthed her baby yet and there’s a deal on the table.
Do you reckon they’ll do their official “before photos” while the newborn is getting its APGAR tests done? Or will she be too busy doing crunches? I’m sure she’ll be prepared, a little like the pregnant woman in the Rebel Sports advertisement hoping she gets some exercise equipment for Christmas to help her get back in shape. I shit you not.
I know this isn’t a new story. This obsession with making women feel ashamed of their bodies is an ongoing, deep-rooted, societal issue, but it’s one which makes me so grumpy.
You see, I used the stretch mark creams. I even had gestational diabetes with two of my three children which restricted my weight gain in the third trimester for each pregnancy. Lucky me (insert sarcasm here).
I had three c-sections in under four years and I’ve been ravaged.
At my heaviest, with my second child, I was 106 kilos. I am now 75 kilos. According to the BMI, I am still overweight and will be until I lose another seven kilos. I continue to address that on a daily basis.
I know many women who have had babies and, regardless of what shape or size they were, their body sprung back into their pre-baby shape.
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58 Responses to this article
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Claireyhewitt December 20, 2011
Great to see the support this article is getting.
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Pauline December 20, 2011
Hi,
Thank you. I found myself getting a little teary while reading your post. I too have had three babies and three c-sections. My heaviest was also over 100 and have recently lost 15 kilos with about 15 to go. My stomach is similar to you and I worry about it every day.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for showing me that their are real mums out there like me. It made me feel better about myself and yes, I also remind myself everyday that it was worth it to get three beautiful healthy children. I should wear it with pride but society has a different opinion.
Thank you (again).
Pauline xx
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Cate Pearce December 20, 2011
The more times I read this post, the more proud of you I become, Bianca.
Know thyself. Love thyself. That is all we should be hearing. -
Lucy December 20, 2011
What a great post Biance. Thank you. I have 3 gorgeous children and a large jelly-belly. The thing is I work out, I run, I eat well and yet I can’t shed that jelly on my tummy. I have a gorgeous trainer who reminds me whenever i get a bit down that it isnt about ‘the look’ but about ‘the feel’. She’s right because despite being 70 kg, i do feel good – Im fit, Im active and I rarely feel ‘big’. But You know, I’d love love love to see Victoria Beckhams tum – how is it physically possible for her to have carried 4 children and have a flat stomach?
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Rachael December 20, 2011
Wow great blog Bianca. Very inspiring to know that my tummy (that looks like your own) is normal! And that all the dieting, exercise may never get rid of it but it will always be a lasting reminder that I gave life to a beautiful boy.
I always cringe a little when my husband touches my stomach and he always says it is beautiful no matter size or shape it is, brings a tear to my eye every time he says it!
I think I will forever feel conscious of it and not always 100% happy with it but I have many other things like my family and life to keep me occupied and content! -
Tracey December 20, 2011
Congratulations on such a great article…All the things that you say are so true…
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Nikki @ Styling You December 20, 2011
You’re a bloody legend Bianca … and that photo of your and your girls is just gorgeous x
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Suzy December 20, 2011
Great article !
Hopefully attitudes will change.
Recently my 15 year old daughter very patiently explained to my 12 year son – the reason why Mums tummy is flabby is because – she grew two people inside her.
I was very proud of her
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Jules December 20, 2011
Bianca – you sound like a great lady and a great mum. No one will ever be defined by their stomach and stretch marks. Your girls are just gorgeous.
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KJ December 20, 2011
Bianca – you are brave and beautiful. xxx
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bigwords December 20, 2011
Thanks so much everyone for your wonderful comments and support x
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Bexsta December 20, 2011
You are braver than I would be. I am not sure that I would post photos – but it seems your worth as a new mother – your mothering abilities seem to be being judged on whether or not your baby will want to be seen about town with you – or be to embarrassed in their prams when you have to head to the larger size section. Purlease…………………………..let’s be gentle on each other and ourselves. It takes a good year for your mind to wrap around the concept that you have birthed another human – let alone your body. To my five kids – I know which one of you gave me stretch marks. The one that wouldn’t budge……………………and still will not budge from the couch. Sprung. Love you all. Girls, let’s give this ridiculousness the bird it deserves and stop judging and teach our little girls not to judge. You are the best Bianca.
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ozzypip December 20, 2011
There is so much pressure on people, so many unrealistic, unhealthy, unhelpful expectations out there if you buy into it. Look at your kids and love them and love your body for being capable of producing them. If you need to lose weight then do it for the right reasons, to be healthy and happy and able to enjoy your life and keep up with your kids, not because of the expectations perpetuated by the media
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Linda December 20, 2011
Bianca, I am so proud of you and your adorable children! Look what you have and be strong. Your body has done a fabulous job. I have had 3 children by caesar and my belly is wobbly, I don’t care. People need to get over themselves. It’s not a problem to me, it’s THEIR problem. Hold your head high girl!
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trees December 20, 2011
Oh yeah Bianca, that looks sooo familiar – really enjoyed mine being ‘enhanced’ by the hysterectomy scar too! Congrats bravo! Glad I haven’t seen the Rebel advert.
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lau@corridorkitchen December 20, 2011
Good on you. I’m so sick of these ‘look at how hot I am’ post-pregnancy magazine articles out there, spreading the myth that there’s something wrong with you if, post preganancy, you don’t look like Miranda Kerr. People need to get a grip and learn what womens’ bodies (often) look like, ffs.
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WENDY GREEN December 20, 2011
If we ALL stop buying those magazines – they’ll soon stop and listen and maybe we can look forward to someone like Wendy Harmer on the cover – advertising the latest fashions for those of us with a ‘fuller’ figure!!
Let’s try it eh? Who’s with me???
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2mail2aj April 26, 2012
I don’t know where the beauty myths come from but we all seem happy to perpetuate the nonsense. Competing with celebs who use surgery and mags who use photoshop is impossible.
Make a start and S-T-O-P buying the magazines!
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Lisa Lintern December 20, 2011
Bianca, your post has received such wonderful positive support. Well done on spotlighting such an important issue. You should be proud.
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JessB December 20, 2011
Great work Bianca, so true.
And you look totally gorgeous, by the way.
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Sue December 20, 2011
Great story! We need to see more pictures of what ‘normal’ is so that we can all realise that it is we who are normal. Those celebrities with the ‘perfect’ bodies are abnormal!! I also want to see more old bodies so that as I age I can accept myself as ‘just like everyone else. We only ever see ‘young’ and ‘perfect’ and it colours our view of what is OK. I am OK! You are OK! Normal is OK!
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Sarah Boggs December 20, 2011
I too am sick and tired of celebs getting their figure back so soon after having babies perhaps if we all had nannies to look after the babes we could get back into shape earlier.lets all get together and ban these magazines I gave up buying them years ago. you young ones go for it.
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Victoria December 20, 2011
Same Bianca. My body has too been ravaged. 3 c-sec’s in 5 years. A scary and painful secondary infection after the third and a wound hernia to go. I weigh my most at 82kgs ever and have only ever put on a max of 14 kilos for all 3 and they were 4 kilo babies. My flab is obvious and exactly like yours. It flaps when I run. I hate being naked in front of my own family. I went to an OB recently to discuss some issues and asked when my stomach will go down. Naively I thought it was still the aftermath of the infection ( my baby is 3 months) and she said to see if the surgeon will do a tummy tuck whilst I have the hernia done. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Actually I lie…I cried. Thankyou for bravely showing us your torment. We are all affected differently by having children and I am learning it’s ok to love myself.
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KAte Sharpe December 20, 2011
I think your belly looks beautiful
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Mary December 20, 2011
Bianca you are SO brave!! What a great contribution. I am post second baby and I have lost 14 kilos and have 4 to go…the hardest bit…still I am told by people “Mmmmm you have put on some weight”…mostly the oldies who obviously forget while they are getting older so am I. I have given birth to two babies post 40 and I am still meant to have my 30 year old body…a size 8 to 10 (I’m now a 14).. My lovely husband reminds me my belly is my trophy from birthing two amazing children. Hats off to you for your candidness…I couldn’t have done it.
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corrie December 20, 2011
Yes, I’m pregnant with my 5th baby and that will be 5 babies in 7 years! My tummy has certainly seen better days that for sure and I think it was the twins that really did it to me. I gain 20kgs each pregnancy and lose most of it but still have issues! I certainly feel the pressure to lose the weight but never from the mums around me who always tell me to stop talking about it but it’s hard to feel overweight when everyone else around you isn’t or is back in shape.
all worth it in the end and after my 4th baby I actually went back to the gym because I loved zumba and step and without getting on the scales just to get fit and a get a break and it really changed my focus!
thanks for a great post of a real post baby belly!
Corrie:)
http://www.retromummy.com -
Emily December 20, 2011
Love this – thankyou! My belly looks very similar but without the c-section scars. Now pregnant with third child in 5 years and secretly relieved to be able to answer ‘yes’ when strangers ask about my pregnancy – instead of making a joke about ‘this? Just leftovers from the first two’.
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Noelene December 20, 2011
I felt like I was looking in a mirror when I looked at your photos. I am a mother of 4, all c sections and after the first, I hate to say it I gained 30 kilos and hit 110, my tummy resembled scone dough. Stretch marks and that flap of skin that just isn’t going to go away are my life’s companion now. It has taken many years of refusing to look in the mirror, my eldest is now 17, for me to finally realize that this is me, this is my body and if you don’t like it that’s your problem not mine. My children are amazing and I would not trade them for one of my stretch marks, or one inch of my flabby belly.
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Deborah December 21, 2011
Your belly is beautiful, it is a sign of motherhood, wear it with pride. My youngest is 14 and I still have the pouch I carried him in. It is part of who I am, part of becoming a mum. My girlfriend’s tummy was flat within two weeks of giving birth – that’s just how her body works. doesn’t mean she feels any more confident than me. When we can love ourselves for who we are, incredible women then maybe those ads won’t hurt so much.
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Vanessa Shields December 21, 2011
Thank you, Bianca!
Please see what I’ve posted on my blog….http://vanessashields.posterous.com/moms-with-baby-bellies-unite-please-read-this
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Daphne Alaksa December 22, 2011
Bianca, you have lovely children and a flabby belly. So what!
There is something really wrong when women feel almost as though they should feel guilty for not being gorgeous or having a wonderful body even soon after giving birth. It is now 55 years since I last gave birth. At that time there was very little discussion about how women should look afterwards. My memory tells me that most of us walked around looking rather big in the middle area for a long, long time. It’s far more important that you and your baby should be well, and that you should be surrounded by people who care for and love you. You mustn’t be too hard on yourself. Be kind to yourself, and maybe even for the present try and love your body. The weight will come off eventually, and even if it takes a long time, does it really matter? Life is a wonderful thing, so try and enjoy it and just forget your weight and your belly.
Be happy and enjoy it all. -
Leith December 24, 2011
Hands down this is the most encouraging, heart warming, inspiring thing I have ever read on the web. THANK YOU. You have helped lift a tiny bit of the shame & pressure & guilt & self hatred I carry around with me every day – about how my body looks post baby.
THIS is what our daughters need to grow up with – REALITY and honesty like is in this blog post – not air brushed fake bull**** women flaunting their almost-anorexic bodies at us all.
THANK YOU again.
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Tara Moss December 27, 2011
You are beautiful. What a raw, stunning, honest post. If there is a god, I feel sure she has a generous, life-giving, post-baby belly.
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Bek January 13, 2012
You are my new hero! Thank you so much for this amazing piece – like you I have the scarred over hang… My boy is almost 6 months now, and everyday it’s watching what I eat and gym classes in the evening, I have 20kg to go to get back to the healthy weigh range… It will happen but I’m not going to stress about it – it’s more important for me to ensure my lil man is happy healthy and thriving.
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Steph January 22, 2012
Yep, these photos could be of me! Well done being honest enough to show people how normal people look when they have given life to beautiful human beings. I hate to be the bearer of bad news though, my kids are 17 and 18 and i still look like this albeit that i’ve never done a tummy crunch since their birth!
Well done! -
Deborah February 2, 2012
I loved this article. This is real life.
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Rachel B March 21, 2012
Wow. YOU are AMAZING! Good on you. You’re an inspiration to us all. What a fabulous role model you are for your beautiful daughters. xxx
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Ingrid March 23, 2012
What an awesome article – but does it really surprise any of you that a celebrity is doing these things??, they are celebritys for a reason…. because we make them so and i feel for them as well, the enormous pressure of them to look ( like we want them to look ) we can sit here and say we don’t care if they are eating something they should’nt and such but really when the pic has been takin and its in a magazine and your waiting at the docs…. have you not looked?? Ive lost between 30 and 40 kgs the healthy and slow way after having 2 babies and both by c section, one emergancy, i lost the weight for my health but also for vanity, i wanted to be proud of what i see in the mirror. I have alot of battle scars including the dreaded stretch marks and im proud of those but i also agree that its not the image we should be putting out there to loose weight fast etc BUT take it from their point of view or wear their shoes for a day and then we might understand just what pressure we as there viewers and fans make them do. Perhaps we should see this as the chance to not be so over the top with idolisation?! HA that will never happen
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Rachel Walsh April 24, 2012
Bianca, I’m late to the party in reading this article but I just have to congratulate you for being so honest about this issue. A helluva lot of real women *do* look exactly like you do after giving birth, yet it’s seen as something abnormal and wrong. Well, a pox on that, I say. I’ve had three kids. I put on 20kg, 30kg and 18kg with them respectively, and at my heaviest I weighed 90kg. I’m now back to 63kg yet your photos could well have been mine. The way my stomach looks is normal and was bloody well hard earned, and I wish more women could feel this way instead of beating themselves up. Articles like yours certainly go a long way to helping with this. Well done.
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Rachael May 31, 2012
Thank you so so much for being so brave and so honest. I have just been up with my son who has gastro, stumbled onto your article while playing on my new eyephone….can you believe I actually just wrote that instead of iPhone, so middle-of-the-night-of-me!….I was just lying here thinking how unhealthy I feel, not to mention contemplating my post-3 children belly….and here you are! Thanks heaps, your honesty and real-ness is so amazingly refreshing xoo
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Caitlin August 13, 2012
I had my first baby 8 months ago and I too have that wobbly, stretch marky loose skin on my belly. I don’t think it’s going anywhere, I’m thinking of naming it….
On the positive side (always gotta find one of those!) my arms are so much more toned from lugging her around everywhere, so I urge you to look away from the belly and find something that you love.
Thank you Bianca, for being real. -
Jane August 17, 2012
I love that belly. As a yoga teacher, I’ve seen it a lot over the years. Each time I see it I get a little pang of jealousy and then I admire your stamp of motherhood that I will never wear. Stand up tall and wear you bellies with pride.
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Indigosuze August 17, 2012
You are so awesome for publishing this. And yes, what lovely girls you are blessed with. A handful if stretch marks and well, just stretch…for a gazillion smiles and baby head smell. Worth every bit by the looks of it
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Mel December 30, 2012
Amazing. You are a wonderful woman
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Kate December 31, 2012
Bravo. Huge braveness. I shit you not.
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Rhoda December 31, 2012
Your ‘belly’ is absolutely normal. There isn’t a need in the world to worry what some Hollywood star is doing. They have to front cameras and are on show 24/7 to the paparazzi. Naturally they want to look perfect. Silly to buy pressure that’s manufactured for movies.
Stop with the magazines and Hollywood gossip and live a life that’s real. No need to buy into any of it. There’s a world out there that doesn’t have Kirsten whatever her name in it or any or them.
I salute you as one non Hollywood Mum to another.
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Sam I Am February 17, 2013
Bianca, congrats on a great post and on three super daughters and on your determination to raise them well, arming them with tools to handle media body image pressures etc and to hopefully generate their self esteem from many rounded sources and not just have it be linked to their appearances.
One additional fact to mention is that for many mums the protruding belly is not fat but due to a diastasis recti or separation of the deep abdominal muscles, which needs careful patient specific exercises to help with the knitting back together. I learned this after my two births ( again, both emergency Caesareans) and prolonged breast feeding saw me skinnier than ever but with a protruding “pregnant” belly. Could be behind many of the tales I read above, as most of these split abdominal conditions remain undiagnosed for years with the ladies involved remaining frustrated and ashamed that despite all the weight loss or exercise there is still a floppy belly there. Sometimes, sure, there is extra padding there too but if the deep abdominals have a split, the “sag” is far worse and there is no tone. My abdominal organs also come forward to the surface sometimes! Which feels alarming…So I love your determination to love your belly as is and be proud of what you and it have done, AND I wanted to add the info that there could also be specific (boring, repetitive!) exercises that can also help repair muscles designed as our natural ” corset” that we’ve ravaged during pregnancy. Likely that people like us who get lots of stretch marks in our skin might also have muscles which cannot spring back to pre stretched mode as easily…
Enjoy your mothering and may your daughters in due course fully embrace your bravery, love and strength.
Sam I Am
