In Focus 🔎 | In a recent study, it was discovered that features commonly associated with a postpartum body — stretch marks, a soft stomach, cellulite and scars from caesarean sections — are rarely shown online, appearing in just 5% of the pictures.
to while away time no longer offers the comfort it once did, as a latest wave of #postpartumbody posts strikes.whose bumps grew in tandem with their own, and are now documenting their ‘fourth trimester’ online. However, unlike the majority of new mums getting to grips with sore breasts and soft, deflated tummies, it’s a sea of flat stomachs and tight bellies. They pose in heels, lingerie, bikinis and gym wear.
‘I never knew what day it was, and was constantly worrying if I was doing a good enough job. I spent my spare time knee deep in washing and trying to get some rest. It was very different from the “perfect” lives I saw looking back at me.’ To protect herself, she shut down her social media use. ’When you’re tired and emotionally run down, you don’t always have the ability to fight those negative thoughts,’ says Zoe. ‘So I had to just block things. I had to take myself off social media for a few weeks. Instead, I focused on myself and not comparing myself to others.’
‘Bounce-back culture is a harmful myth,’ Melissa tells Metro.co.uk. ‘There are some women who will give birth and within days may not look like they have given birth. They appear to snap back, but the reality is, nobody has snapped back. The internal healing is significant. There is a wound the size of a dinner plate where your placenta was attached. That has to heal, whether you can see abs again straight away or not.
‘For some people, the most important thing might be getting their jeans back on. That’s their choice. But it’s not everyone’s priority.’ Melissa also warns that we shouldn’t be reading too much into a picture. ‘We place such an innate value on thinness, and women will be told they look amazing if they lose a lot of weight,’ she says. ‘But the fact is that plenty of people say they had hyperemesis throughout pregnancy, so they ‘snapped back’ because they barely ate, or women who had such severe anxiety and depression postnatally that they physically couldn’t eat.
Psychiatrist Dr Galyna Selezneva agrees. ‘The pressure of models showing off a flat stomach nine days post delivery – when most women’s uterus won’t even contract back to its original size – is appalling,’ she tells Metro.co.uk. ‘There is no “normality” and the word should be personalised to what feels good and “normal” for each person.
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