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Guest post: "Birth changes your body - and the way you see it - forever"

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MumsnetGuestPosts · 14/09/2016 16:39

It was the kangaroo pouch that took me by surprise: the extraordinarily saggy space left by my hour-old baby son. I was in the shower, trying to process the cataclysmic event that had just taken place and felt the crepey, heavy, tired, droopy rucksack where my strong stomach used to be. “Christ alive,” I thought, “Nobody told me about that…will it ever go back?”

Perhaps, for you, it was the toll taken on your precious lady-parts; the way your hair fell out in clumps once you finished breastfeeding; the stretch marks striating your thighs; or downsizing your bras to accommodate the not-quite-so-perky boobs. Whatever changes pregnancy and birth wrought on your body, the chances are, it – and the way you see it – has never been the same again.

For some, the ravages of the journey can be difficult to accept, especially at a time when you feel guilty for contemplating anything other than the wellbeing of your offspring. You might briefly wonder whether you’ll ever look hot in heels again - only to feel bad for indulging in such narcissism when your baby needs you. We women are very hard on ourselves. For others, the early weeks pass in a haze of doubt, bliss or shock, and the last thing on your mind is when you might get back into your skinny jeans. As with every stage of pregnancy, birth and motherhood, we are all different and there is no right or wrong way to relate to your post-partum body.

But we are united by a greater understanding of our physicality in a way that men will never understand. They will never know how weird it is to find your feet grow in pregnancy and never shrink back, or to go through drawer-fulls of bras when your rib cage expands by several inches, only to narrow a year later. Without being blessed by the effects of pregnancy hormone relaxin, men won’t feel their hips and pelvis widen. In a particularly misogynistic practice, some cultures tightly bind women’s hips for the first eight weeks after birth in order to render wives ‘slender’ once again. In the US, there’s a growing trend for pricey elasticated belts that mimic this scientifically-dubious technique.

It’s no coincidence that such products are popular at a time when celebrities and picture editors conspire to dictate what we ‘should’ be aspiring to. As soon as the celebrity baby arrives, mum is papped ‘stepping out’ in tight trousers and wedge heels. Yes, some are genetically blessed (I have never gazed at a picture with more intense fascination than that of model Abbey Clancey in a bikini 10 weeks after giving birth – to her second child). But most are completely knackered behind the sunglasses; holding in their stomachs so tight that they may pass out and worried their pelvic floor won’t hold up in front of the paparazzi. Those whose appearance is their living may have been in the gym since week two post-delivery, shunning cake and coffee for sushi and green juice. But don’t envy them – feel a tad sorry that they aren’t able to feast on carrot cake and lattes at 10am for a few months at least.

One of the many wisdoms of becoming a mother is reflecting on the absurdity of the ‘body issues’ of our youth. How crazy that we agonised about whether our boobs were too big or too small to pull that boy we fancied, when they now sustain and soothe a screaming baby. How funny that we worried about whether our bums were too big when the real love of our lives is a giggling two-year-old who couldn’t care less.

And yet, of course, no teenage girl will believe these truths until she too is a mother - and even then, this knowledge can be difficult to cling onto when we wistfully remember the bodies of our youth. What we can hope for is to feel ‘happy enough’ in our skin to get dressed and undressed each day without sorrow and regret. And to recognise that whatever bits are flappier, flabbier or frumpier, they all contributed in their own way to doing something amazing.

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sianihedgehog · 15/09/2016 10:07

It's certainly interesting to see how differently all the women commenting feel. And it's interesting that no matter how they feel, they are mostly united in hating the original piece.
I think I agree. My body was mostly fine before pregnancy and it's mostly fine now. I'm no supermodel, but most of it works okay. We don't all have to have body issues, either before or after pregnancy.