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New Mummy Blog: I Can’t Love My Post-Baby Body

Our mummy blogger says pregnancy has hijacked her body. And now she’d really like it back.

I’m not meant to admit it. I’m meant to be fiercely proud of my post-pregnancy body, even the stretchmarks, the wobbly parts and the bits that don’t seem to work quite as they should any more.

And while of course I’m proud of what my body has done – made and grown a tiny human and then expelled it in one piece and good working order – it seems like a bit of a cheat.

Post-birth, a woman's body has a habit of feeling a little wobbly [Rex]
Post-birth, a woman's body has a habit of feeling a little wobbly [Rex]

After all, it just sort of happened to my body, I didn’t really give it a choice. And now it’s getting its own back.

It has decided, it would seem, that having been put through the indignity of expanding to gargantuan proportions, of nausea night and day, of swollen hands, feet and face, of back pain and waddling and being unable to bend and of needing to pee constantly, it’s had enough.

Photographer Jade Beall's photos show the beauty of real mum's post-baby bodies [Instagram/Jade Beall Photography]
Photographer Jade Beall's photos show the beauty of real mum's post-baby bodies [Instagram/Jade Beall Photography]

No, it’s not going to snap back to its pre-pregnancy shape, thank you very much. It might, with a lot of grovelling (and more burpees than should be humanly possible) eventually remould itself into something vaguely passable, but right now it feels like my bikini days are over.

I’m pretty sure my body has changed forever – some bits are droopier, other bits wider – and nothing I do can change that.

I see the media lauding (albeit with an often judgemental sting in the tail) the post-pregnancy weight loss that’s paraded down the red carpet.

You would never know Blake had a baby in December [Getty]
You would never know Blake had a baby in December [Getty]

In the last few weeks alone we’ve had Blake Lively, looking impossibly perfect less than two months post-birth in unforgiving body-con at New York Fashion Week.

Mila Kunis has been on the promotional trail for her new movie crediting breastfeeding for her already back-to-tiny physique – the only remnant of her pregnancy the newly acquired need to wear a bra for her more ample chest.

Mila Kunis is back to her usual tiny self, just four months after giving birth [Rex]
Mila Kunis is back to her usual tiny self, just four months after giving birth [Rex]

And Rosamund Pike squeezed into a mind-boggling backless dress with cutaway side panels, with no post-pregnancy wobbles and absolutely no possibility of the sort of scaffolding-grade shapewear most mortals would need five weeks after having a baby.

Rosamund Pike is the woman of the moment after her terrific acting in Gone Girl [Getty]
Rosamund Pike is the woman of the moment after her terrific acting in Gone Girl [Getty]



I could go on, but the message is coming through loud and clear. If your baby weight stubbornly refuses to shift, somehow you’ve failed.

And do I feel revulsion at this message? Indignance at what this reduces us to as women and new mothers? Do I heck.

All I feel is a deep seated jealousy, and an overwhelming sense of failure that, two months on I’m nursing not only a newborn but also a saggy tummy and several extra pounds of weight.

Sure, I squeezed myself into my pre-pregnancy size eights less than three weeks after Henry’s birth (fine as long as I didn’t sit down), but who am I kidding? I’m not snapping back into shape any time soon.

I know I've made two children but is it wrong to say I'm not happy with my body? [Copyright/Yahoo]
I know I've made two children but is it wrong to say I'm not happy with my body? [Copyright/Yahoo]

Yes, I should probably have bigger things to think about. Like my newborn. And my toddler. Yes, I know it takes nine months to put it on and you should take nine months to work it off. And yes, I know that a body that’s made a baby is a body that’s earned its stripes.

But while all this might have resonated and left me proud of my body in the warm afterglow of birth (although that may have just been the Entonox) it doesn’t wash any more.

I’ve changed my mind. I’m not proud of my body when I look in the mirror. Instead I miss how it used to look. And I’m doing everything I can to get it back. Can I bench press my toddler, do you think?

Does it make me a bad mother, that I haven’t stopped caring about how I look? Actually, I don’t think so. I exercise when they’re in bed, or napping, so it doesn’t eat into the time I have with them. And I’m hypersensitive to exposing my little girl to my body hang ups.

I miss how my body looked before I had children [Rex]
I miss how my body looked before I had children [Rex]



I wish I could join the army of proud mamas who want to strip off and shout ‘look at me, I’ve had a baby, isn’t my body an awesome thing!’, and rightly so, but I can’t.

I’ve tried but I can’t love my post-pregnancy body. Since Henry’s birth, each week passes and I wish I’d been a little more disciplined, a little less tired, and done a little more about it.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t love my children to within an inch of their life. And of course I’d give up those size eights every single time, in a heartbeat, to ensure their health and happiness. I just want to have my cake and eat it. Literally.

[New Mummy Blog: Pregnancy Is Making My Body Unrecognisable]

[The Before And After Celebrity Pregnancy Pic – Inspiring Or Irresponsible]