belly wrapping! must share!

[aries24]

I'm 25weeks. Something I found out and must share for those who don't know. Having quite an attractive body, the thought of pregnancy has always scared me to the point of non excitment (although I adore children) because generally most women lose their flat tummys afterwards! And no amount of gyming and losing weight gets it exactly the way it was(I've seen this in many as work at a nursery school). So all my time I've just accepted this fact until I saw a friend of mine two months after the birth of her DD with an incredibly sexy flat tummy! She told me about belly wrapping! You wrap your tummy for 40 days night and day, very very tightly. It pushes the womb right back into place which doesn't happen naturally! And restores stretch marks by 50%!!!! Apparently its a very ancient practice in many cultures around the world!! Hope this helps for some of you's!! I can't wait to try it

The thing about belly binding is not just getting your figure back but its excellent support for your body post birth and good for your posture, especially if you're breastfeeding.

My stomach was flatter than it had ever been about 2 years after having DS as I continued to swim regularly while pregnant, breastfed him for 15 months (love the breastfeed and eat cake diet ) and did gentle exercise after his birth, starting with a walk with the buggy round the village every day to eventually getting back into running long distances. It maybe took longer than belly wrapping or using a corset or whatever, but I felt bloody fit. Now pg with DC2 and will do the same again to get back in shape afterwards.

i have done absolutely nothing, never dieted past my 20s (well, i breastfed if it counts) and i was back to pre-pg weight a week later and pre-pg shape a month later. i am well into my 40s

some are just luckier than others

Thanks ladies, feel a bit better now

I think it's the finger-wagging superiority of the OP that has got this thread the replies it has.

The OP has not had a baby yet but is telling, yes TELLING a very large parenting website, full of women who actually have had babies, that:

• generally most women lose their flat tummys after [childbirth]

• no amount of gyming and losing weight gets it exactly the way it was

• belly wrapping IS the way to stop this.

She adds spurious claims:

• it pushes the womb right back into place which doesn't happen naturally

• it restores stretch marks by 50%

And implies that a post-pregnant stomach is unattractive. There is an undertone of "Ugh! I don't want to end up looking like you lot."

Add into the mix a level of exclamation marks inappropriate for a 15 year old and you have an OP that has got something to bring out the viper in everyone.

If the OP had read.

"Call me shallow but I am 25 weeks pg and worried about what having a baby will do to my stomach. A friend of mine has a fab flat stomach and said it is down to belly-wrapping. Has anyone tried it, or even heard of it? What do they think?"

they would have probably got an entirely different set of answers.

baloon :)

or even balloon
sorry

Yes, exactly what BalloonSlayer said.

And the bit about her dh marrying "her body" really made me and feel quite sad....might be repeating myself here

I agree that it is the tone of posts (including a post completely in bold) which has influence the tone of replies.

Personally as a scientist I find it really annoying when scientifically inaccurate info is presented as fact (greenpeace tried to tell me that the rainforest was essential for penicillin last week buy that's an aside)...

Personally...the definition of natural is without aid.

I would also like to point out that your womb shrinks to its normal size because of hormones...(which is helped by bf)...not wrapping.
Your womb moves to the correct position because it shrinks...deep in your pelvis, there is no way that any clothing/corset/whatever can push it into the correct position because the correct position is so low (and would need to travel downwards not inwards IYSWIM).

And your comments about you wanting your husband to look at you and not sexy mags is shallow. Personally if you are worried about that you also need to worry about your pelvic floor and vaginal anatomy post pregnancy and post birth...cos you presumably want your dh to be having sex with you and not a younger childless model!

(btw you can help retain and regain strong vaginal muscles with excercise...the same is true for your stomach!)

Personally its not for me, as a scientist it looks like either a) tradition for those that live in parts of the world where it is practised and B) a money making scheme for areas of the world where it is not.

(i do see value in the support offered by the belt linked above, but not in regaining the sexy body in the way presented by the op)

Xpost will balloon who has overlapped the content of my post and said it much better than me :)

Balloon got it in one along with the dh comment.

< wanders back out again>

Also, I can't imagine those things are good the pelvic floor. A slightly too tight pair poof yoga pants had me worried about my stitches, something intended to squeeze the abdomen doesn't bare thinking about.

Sorry about typos, on my phone.

Just thought I'd stick my tuppence worth in. I had my first child at 41 and wasn't exactly fit and toned beforehand, but as a few others here have mentioned, breastfeeding can make a huge difference to how you look afterwards. I was a size 14 pre pregnancy and after a couple of months of breastfeeding was a size 10. I hadn't really thought or cared what I would look like once my baby was born .... but, call me vain, I didn't half get a buzz out of buying size 10 clothes .... and it gave me an excuse (as if I needed one) to get all evangelical about breastfeeding. Some people responded more positively to the weightloss it caused than any of my, erm, lectures about perfect nourishment and strong immune systems. I didn't have a lot of support for my decision to breastfeed unfortunately, so ended up feeling I needed to defend myself a lot of the time.

Anyway, all that aside - if you want to look good, aries, there's nothing wrong with that. You might find it matters a little less once your baby's here. I think the slagging off you've had is unfair. Good luck.

Aries, thank you for sharing something you like you look of. There's nothing wrong with wanting to reclaim your body after being pregnant or with wanting to be in shape so that you feel sexy for your husband, yourself or anyone else.

Don't take any notice of the posters who seem offended by the very idea of wanting to look good after becoming a mother. Some women are happier when make an effort with their appearance & others are just as happy to slop about in oversized fleeces and crocs with their hair scraped back on frizzy bun type things... I see a fair amount of those at the school gates and I do inwardly shudder to myself when I look at them 😁

I had something similar to that belly wrap that I started wearing about a week after my last c-section. I didn't wear it for 40 days and nights but I did find it helpful. My uterus does take a bit longer to go down after birth (this has been confirmed by my midwife) and I liked wearing the wrap when I was out and about because it stopped the awkward conversations where people assumed I was still pregnant. I definitely noticed that the puffiness around my stomach was going down at the end of each day & friends also commented on the fact that my tummy had disappeared more quickly than the first time.

I also liked wearing the wrap because it gave me support (as my stomach muscles had separated and I had a hernia) and made me stand up straight- which is important after a c-section. It wasn't uncomfortable, it really helped me not to slouch forward over the scar.

Anyway, each to their own, I hope you have a smooth pregnancy 😃

It's not as if the OP said her DH married her for her body - she said she wants to maintain the body she had when she got married.

I don't see why it's such a crime against women to want to look good for your partner.

And implies that a post-pregnant stomach is unattractive. There is an undertone of "Ugh! I don't want to end up looking like you lot."

That's quite a leap. Why does the OP wanting to get her flat stomach back have to equal a personal attack on those who aren't as bothered?

Although I would say OP that it is possible to get a completely flat stomach after pregnancy. My two sisters with DCs are flat as pancakes

I just read it as the Op found out something, was excited about it and wanted to share.
I didn't think she came across all superior at all.

It's that written word interpretation issue again.

Why does everyone think rhey will end up with a big flabby belly and stretch marks?

I have 3 little stretch marks after having DS and I was back in my jeans after about 6 weeks. No dieting or strange wrapping was required, I went for walks pushing DS in pram and just ate normally.

Hi op - im very interested as post dd1 I hated my body do much I cried often about it. I will be checking this out and no there's nothing wrong with wanting to look nice. I'm not opressed I'm
Single. I'm a woman and I have needs and how I look is part of my identity.
Those posts on fb etc about starch marks being tiger stripes and something to be proud of can fuck off as far as I'm concerned.

As for the post-pregnancy stomach being unattractive - it IS!! Let's be serious, is there anyone who genuinely likes the way their stomach looks in the weeks after giving birth?! You can be a great mum, be happily bonding with your baby and still look in the mirror and think "Good Lord, my body looks absolutely horrendous at the moment!".

To the poster that gave the lecture about "I'm just hoping for a healthy pregnancy blah blah" and called the OP "shallow" - do get over yourself! Thinking about her post-birth body doesn't mean the OP is a crap mother who doesn't care if her baby is healthy. It's not a competition, where the fattest, most unkempt person wins the 'best mother' award...

^ and this

Different strokes and all of that...

Pregnancy and childbirth is treated very differently in South Africa. I have had 2 in the UK and 1 in SA. The CS rate in private hospitals is greater than 90%. I was turned away by two OB's on account of the fact that I refused a CS. I had dd in one of the busiest wards in Cape Town - she was the only "old fashioned" birth on the ward the day she was born.

No accounting for cultural mores...