Pregnancy Body Shaming

It takes nine months, more or less, for a woman to grow and birth a new life into this world. That’s 42 weeks. 294 days. 423,360 minutes. In that amount of time, our bodies undergo changes unlike anything anyone has experienced before. Pregnant women go through spiritual, psychological, and physiological warfare within themselves—and more so than not do we talk about the psychological, spiritual, and even emotional portion of this experience. For the most part, we know that you can get postpartum depression, and with that, there are resources directly after birth to help combat that. For example, we are asked, and sometimes given, questionnaires as to how we are feeling emotionally. But rarely do we ever discuss the physiological effects that our society as a whole throws onto us about the way a woman should look immediately after giving birth.

Pregnant woman can gain more than 30 pounds of weight—and gaining weight coincides with stretch marks—during this nine- to 10-month period. And yet, it is expected of us to shred all of that weight before that child even has a chance to turn one years old. The stretch marks in some eyes make it seem like our bodies are deformed and tarnished. It’s funny because, sometimes during pregnancy, we can be seen as beautiful, powerful, brave even. But after pregnancy, all we are seen as is just... not sexy. “You seem to be gaining weight, honey, are you stressed?” “You weren’t that big when you first had the baby, are you eating more?” “When do you plan on going on your exercise regimen, you said you’d be working out?” “I remember what you used to look like before the baby. You used to look like that woman over there!” This is what our loved ones, and even some strangers, say to us once we complete this extraordinary, life-changing accomplishment. Why is it that we are shamed for gaining more weight and pressured into exercising? Why must we look sexy all the time? Is it really not okay to just want to sit home, in our sweats, hair messed up, and not doing anything at all—besides caring for our new bundle of joy, of course! Birthing a baby and taking care of that baby is a full-time job! When do we even have the chance to find time for ourselves? We’re lucky if we even have the opportunity to take a shower during the week—and a 10-minute shower is a pure blessing.

All in all, there needs to be more talk about the way we view our bodies, pregnant or not. Social media can drive a wedge between what is real and what isn’t. Too many times do we see our favorite celebrities giving birth and have full-on six packs just ONE MONTH after giving birth. How?! Can they share their secret because any woman would love to look the way they do! Unfortunately, it just isn’t realistic. We must understand that these women have images to keep up. They are in the public eye 24/7, and so to not have their bodies looking like they were never even pregnant in the first place, they would be ridiculed by millions of people. By us not being in all that spotlight, the only people who shame us would be the people we know closely, and ultimately... ourselves. At the end of the day, how we view OURSELVES is all that matters. If you want to workout and get you body back after pregnancy, that is your prerogative, but if you don’t... waiting until you’re emotionally AND psychologically ready to commit is just fine, too.