Your Post-Baby Body - What Actually Happens?
Among the biggest fears we have during pregnancy is how our body will look after growing a child inside of it for 9 months. It’s a rational fear, but I’m here to tell you that it's OKAY - you’ve got nothing to worry about.
Sure, everything is going to change - I would be lying to you if I said that you’ll “bounce back” and be in love with your body in no time. Because even the moms that look incredible just a few months after giving birth are looking in the mirror and seeing something totally different from what the rest of the world sees. It’s all relative.
So which parts of your body are going to change, and what can you expect them to look like after pregnancy?
Your figure
Your figure is going to change, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. During pregnancy, our hips get wider to make space for our growing babies and to give us the room to ultimately, push them out. This leaves us with a more womanly figure that we can strut around with pride knowing that we created and birthed actual life!
Granted, you might look at photos of your pre-pregnancy body and feel disheartened, that’s normal. The truth is that you’ll probably never feel like you’ve totally achieved returning to what you looked like before you became a mama. But that’s the point I think...we’re mothers now, and what could be more worth trading our skinny silhouettes in for than that?
Breasts
Nobody ever told us that following breastfeeding, our breasts will actually be smaller than they were before pregnancy. You’ve been warned. Enjoy those voluptuous milky breasts while you can!
If you had small breasts before pregnancy, you might not notice much of a difference. And if you had larger breasts, you might find that they look and feel a bit empty and droopy. But it’s ok! Look what they did...they kept your baby alive!
There’s also a good chance that you’ll see some kind of change in your nipples. They might now point up, point down, or be ever so slightly inverted - all normal.
Belly
It’s incredible and downright weird how much our bellies can stretch to accommodate a full-sized newborn. Babies might look tiny, but when you remember that they fit inside a belly, they start to look enormous.
You might have a persistent saggy pouch that just won’t go away no matter how many sit-ups you do. You might be beautifully decorated with stretch marks that enabled your body to house life. Whatever it is that you’re left with after pregnancy, learn to love it. It might take some time, but you earned those mama tiger stripes, own them!
Exercise
Though we can’t narrow our hips or enlarge our breasts through exercise, there are lots of things we can do. Because of this, exercise can be your best friend after pregnancy, provided that you take it easy and listen to your body.
As well as building some stomach muscles and perking up our breasts through building muscle in the chest, exercise will also give us the cardio and strength that we need to keep up with little ones. It also releases endorphins and will help us to feel fabulous about our bodies, saggy breasts or not.
Learn to love your postpartum body, treat it to a little (or a lot!) of healthy movement, and soon enough you’ll be feeling like your best self again.
Through all of this, remember that you made a tiny human, that’s enough of a reason to give yourself a break - and a lot of love!