A few things

The world is "so shocked" by Kate Middleton's post-baby belly. Well, I think that's a bit presumptuous. Ask any mom and she'll tell you that you still look pregnant one day after having a baby! But the article made some good points about post-baby invisibility. Another similar article is at The Daily Beast.

source: The Daily Beast

Looking for a great initiative to support? Try The Barefoot Bus, a mobile clinic providing prenatal care and health services to underserved women.

An unusual story of having a baby (unusual for some people, that is). Filmmaker James Colquhoun (Food Matters & Hungry For Change) tells the story of his family's journey through pregnancy and birth.

Ivy is 4 months old today! Will update shortly...

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What do you like about your body?

You might have noticed the recent silence here--I've been busy going on long road trips to visit family. We got back from a 2-week trip to Minnesota and Wisconsin and left town a few days later to drive to northern Ohio.

I was invited to give a presentation about body image and visual media to a group of 120 teenage girls. They were on a week-long campout and had to be evacuated yesterday evening to a nearby church building due to tornadoes and flooding. I gave my presentation this morning, after they'd spent the night sleeping on the floor of the church. Here's an overview of what we talked about:

First, I did a really fast tour through 200 years of Western women's fashion, including Regency, Civil War, and Victorian eras, the Flapper girls of the 1920s, Christian Dior's post-WWII "new look", the lean and leggy 1960s, and current-day supermodels. I displayed pictures of both undergarments and outer clothing to show the girls how drastically the ideal female body has morphed from decade to decade. We looked at average heights and weights of the ideal female body early in this century, compared to today.

We also looked at what body types are marketed to females (uber-slim supermodels) and to males (curvy, busty women with small waists) versus the average American woman. I highlighted some issues raised by former Vogue editor Kirstie Clements; over the past two decades, she has seen models' bodies dramatically slim down, to the point that today's models often faint multiple times during photoshoots and spend a lot of time in hospitals due to near-starvation. I discussed how the majority of American females are dissatisfied with their bodies, due in large part to unattainable beauty ideals.

Next, we discussed our exposure to visual media and how extensive digital manipulation and photoediting is. I used the brilliant site Beauty Redefined for this segment of my presentation, particularly their before and after photoshop exposes. This segment was super, super fun--the girls really got into comparing the before and after images. I also showed some still photos from the Dove Evolution commercial (I didn't have video capability so had to do everything on Powerpoint).

After looking at these images, we talked about how to counteract the sea of visual media that we swim in every day. I showed them this photographer's project: "I like my body because it's magic!" She asked 4-9 year old girls what they liked about their bodies. Their answers were fascinating--they all discussed their bodies in terms of what they could do and experience, not in terms of what they looked like.

I suggested that if we can learn to dislike our bodies and to relate to them primarily in terms of what they look like, we can also deliberately unlearn and reject those attitudes. I emphasized that we need to learn to love our bodies for what they can DO, CREATE, and EXPERIENCE, not for what they look like.

I had so much fun giving the presentation. The girls were very lively and were practically jumping out of their seats to make comments or ask questions.

I know how hard it is to truly feel positively about your body. I've taken multiple graduate courses on these very topics, learned the tools to analyze and break apart visual media and advertising, and yet I still have more negativity than I'd like towards my body. So I get it. It's not just as simple as deciding you'll love your body and poof! you're done.

I shared with the girls that I am 35 years old and I still have many moments where I get frustrated with my body. I don't like how fluffy and bulging my stomach is right now, 3 months postpartum. I have to remind myself that that same body grew four new lives, brought four babies into the world, and nursed four babies. And that's really, really amazing. I had Ivy with me, so they were able to coo over her afterwards.

I'd like to hear how you relate to your body, what you've done for yourself or for your children to counteract the damaging media culture we live in. What has helped? What resources do you like? How can we stay sane when we see an average of 600 photoshopped images per day?

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Postpartum belly: 4 weeks after

This will probably be my last postpartum belly shot for a while. I'm pretty much back to normal except for a slightly squishy belly.

Lots of crazy things happening around here, but it's super late. I will save that for another day. Let me leave you with some now-and-then pictures of Inga. She is getting so chubby! She definitely has lost that newborn look. I can't believe she is already one month old. Sigh...

1 week old

4 weeks old

2 1/2 weeks old

4 weeks old

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Postpartum belly: 2 weeks after

Postpartum belly 2 weeks after giving birth

And some Inga cuteness...

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Postpartum belly: 6 days after

I stopped taking belly pictures after day 6, since Eric is out of town. He ended up going on the last half of his immersion trip to the US Virgin Islands. It felt like a good compromise; we've settled into a routine and Eric's mom has figured out how to get the kids to bed, where everything is in town, etc. He phoned me this evening to say the weather is lovely and the snorkeling fantastic. Lucky him!

6 days after giving birth

I've gone through an obscenely large pile of books over the past few weeks. Basically all I do during the day is take pictures, blog, eat dark chocolate, nurse, and read with Inga lying on my chest. And sometimes take long baths in the evenings. I wish there were a way to slow time down. I know from having had two other children that this newborn stage passes so quickly. As much as you try to capture these moments in your memory, you forget so much.

Inga is a calm, snuggly, content baby. As long as she is on my chest or in the sling, she is the happiest thing ever. It's made nights a bit tricky because she does not like lying on her back or being swaddled. She's been sleeping on my chest or in the crook of my arm most of the time. She's so strong that she wiggled herself out of her swaddling blankets when she was just a day old! But being strong and coordinated also has its advantages. She can latch herself on in the dark with pretty much no help from me--something my other kids couldn't do until they were at least a month or two old.

I switched over to cloth diapers yesterday, but it's been so overcast and gloomy outside that I haven't taken the obligatory picture with her Canadian diapers. Maybe tomorrow. I feel like I'm coming down with something, so it's off to bed for me.

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Postpartum belly: 4 & 5 days after

4 days after giving birth

5 days after giving birth

Zari wanted a "picture with the belly"

morning snuggle

Zari's turn

Dio thinks Inga is pretty neat

He loves to give hugs

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Postpartum belly: 2 & 3 days after

2 days after giving birth

3 days after giving birth

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Postpartum belly: 1 day after

I've always wanted pictures of my shrinking postpartum belly. It's like pregnancy in rapid reverse! So here's 1 day after giving birth:

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It's a water birth at home for Gisele Bundchen

My google reader alerts are going haywire with the news of Gisele Bundchen's home water birth last December. She had a water birth in her penthouse apartment in Boston.

And of course there's the breathless reporting of how she's already back to her pre-baby body in just six weeks. People magazine reported: "Only weeks after giving birth to baby Benjamin, Gisele Bündchen is already back to work – and looking hot as ever....the new mom looked radiant, beautiful and as 'in shape as always, six weeks after the birth of her baby.'"

When I was at the gym this morning, I paged through a recent copy of Women's Health, which featured Ashlee Simpson's and other celebrities' secrets to getting your body back after a baby. They all talk about how they love to eat, how they don't stress about losing the weight...and I'm thinking yeah right, there's no way you can go back to your impossibly slim figure without a crazy amount of exercise and food restriction! At least have the honesty to tell us how much effort goes into taming your newly postpartum body back to its former shape and size--one that most American women can't attain in the first place.

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Things that make me smile

I came across three things today that made me smile.

First, NursingBirth's post How one mom “Walked, moved around, and changed positions” to a successful hospital VBAC! This was written as part of Science & Sensibility's Healthy Birth Blog Carnival #2 on moving, walking, and changing positions during labor.

Second, the National Advocates for Pregnant Women have announced the winners of their writing contest. The contest "asked law students to address the statutory, constitutional, and/or human rights arguments that can be made to challenge the trend of banning pregnant women from having a vaginal birth after a caesarean section (VBAC)."

And finally, this lovely short film Too Big For My Skin. Thanks to TopHat!

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Real bodies in fancy magazines

While I'm not terribly enthusiastic about nude photos in glossy magazines--sexual or not--I have to admit that I loved this picture of a "real" woman, complete with sagging belly, stretch marks, and larger thighs, in Glamour. She's a plus-size model and her body is the real deal.

It's sad, though, that a size 12-14 is considered plus-size. I'm in the neighborhood of size 10-12 right now and last time I checked, I was a size medium. If medium is plus-size, I hate to think what a large or extra-large would be...

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Postpartum bodies

As shallow or trivial as it might sound, I need to admit something: I am feeling dumpy and frumpy in my postpartum body right now. For the first few weeks after giving birth, I feel incredibly attractive. Every day, especially during the first week, I look thinner and more shapely. My breasts get bigger, my stomach gets smaller, and when I see myself in the mirror each morning, I think, "Wow! I look good!"

I find newly postpartum bodies incredibly beautiful. Very feminine--or perhaps the better word is womanly. I love the empty, rounded belly; the soft bread-dough skin; the flush of hormones.

Then the swelling and the shrinking slow down and that's where the postpartum frumpiness sets in. It doesn't help when celebrities shrink back to their pre-pregnant bodies in record time. If you want to make yourself feel bad about your post-baby body, then definitely DON'T look at this 24-page slideshow of magical shrinking celebs! Last year, MSNBC reported on how Celebrity mamas fuel post-baby body blues:

Perhaps the most painful part about the new celebumom standard is that it’s managed to infiltrate the last bastion of the female experience. Years ago, moms got a pass — even moms with movie deals. Now even motherhood — the great equalizer — has gotten a brutally hot makeover.

Wilson says standards have become so distorted that a “normal” mom body is now viewed as “unattractive.”

“The tabloids and TV make it seem like it’s not normal that your body looks different after you’ve had a baby,” she says. “It’s like there’s something wrong with you physically — or you’re lazy — if you’re not able to get back to the exact same shape and size that you were prior to conceiving a child. And that’s impossible.”

Impossible, that is, if you don’t happen to have a personal trainer, personal chef, nutritionist, nanny, night nurse, and three or four full-time assistants.

“Celebs have 24-hour ‘round the clock care,” says Suzanne Schlosberg, mother to 13-month-old twin boys and co-author of The Active Woman’s Pregnancy Log: A Day-to-Day Diary and Guide to a Fit and Healthy Pregnancy. “They’ve got somebody to take care of baby while they do their workouts with their $250-an-hour trainer. They’ve got a fancy personal chef creating their perfect 200-calorie meals. It’s not an even playing field. They have all these advantages that real people don’t have.”

In fact, the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQEHC) recently advised that new mothers should take 6-12 months to gradually lose their pregnancy weight. An article discussing the IQEHC's recommendations reported:

The IQEHC said celebrities who are back at their normal weight within weeks of giving birth are not necessarily a good example for other mothers.

Nicole Kidman was back in her skinny jeans weeks after her daughter's birth last year, and model Heidi Klum was back on the catwalk shortly after giving birth. Unlike most new mothers, these women usually have a collection of nannies and housekeepers on call, leaving them extra time to work on their figures.

The institute said gaining weight in pregnancy is normal and necessary to support the unborn baby. Taking that weight off again should take some time.

“Having a new baby is a major change in lifestyle,” the IQEHC guidelines state.

“After childbirth, weight loss is complicated by the extra stresses the mother is facing, and her need to provide nutrition for her baby if she is breastfeeding. Women are exposed to many unrealistic images of female body size, and body size around pregnancy or after birth is no exception. That makes it difficult for many women to be satisfied with their figures, and it can damage their self-image and enjoyment of their body. You do not have to be movie star thin to be happy, healthy and have a healthy baby.” Read more here.

I know, I know. But it's still hard to not fit into some of my clothes, to have that extra thickness, and to feel frumpy in addition to being tired from taking care of a newborn and a toddler!

Other mothers have recently shared their thoughts about their postpartum bodies: Jill at Keyboard Revolutionary talks about her cesarean scar bothering her years after her surgery. Housefairy talks about diets and how "this is me, and there is not one iota of room in this Mama for added stress of self hate." In another post, she mentions her post-cesarean (x3) body. And I'm still waiting for her to finish her post about 34 years of body image. (Hint hint!)

Thoughts? Comments? Any other good posts or articles about postpartum bodies you'd like to share?

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Another perspective on "Mommy Jobs"

The newest thing in plastic surgery--Mommy Makeovers or Mom Jobs--has incited a lot of controversy. Breast and Belly has an interesting discussion going. Here's another perspective on attitudes towards mothers' bodies, from Ruth C. White, a professor at Seattle University (reposted with permission):

What they need is European friends... So here's my story....

I go to Barbados for a conference/vacation. I am wearing a black one piece I had worn for years because although I was a size 8/10 I felt my stretch marks and pooch were not worthy of exposing to the world. (Being a twentysomething hottie did not prepare me for poochy thirtysomething).

So I meet two young (not yet 30) Germans: one a charming, handsome, multilingual (5) stock broker (Paris) and one 6'3" walking Adonis of an investment banker (Frankfurt).

We meet sitting on the beach one day. They ask me why I wore the swimsuit I did instead of a bikini like the girl walking by. I explained about stretch marks.

The investment banker says: "But you had a baby." And I'm thinking "DUH!" Well, I liked him straight off and when he later told me that my poochy, stretchmarked stomach was his favorite part of my body, I just about wrapped him in brown paper and took him home.

But home I went alone and threw out the one piece and went and got me a low cut bikini from old navy. And I work it. With no shame to my game at all.

Now why did it take some hot young European stud to give me the gumption to parade my slightly poochy but very stretchmarked body on beaches from San Pedro to Montego Bay, Brisbane and beyond? In the meantime, poochy men were hanging over their speedos everywhere I went.

But now, I've got that same poochy bod on my facebook page wearing my bikini on my deck on Queen Anne (Seattle) hill as the first pic in my "my 40 year old life" photo album.

There is nothing pathological about stretch marks or varicose veins or tummy pooch. Like my girlfriend says, "it's how you work it!" If you have confidence in self, guys (although it seems most women are worried about other women's POV and that's the sad part) won't notice, just like how they don't notice a boob job. ("How can you tell?" whatever! LOL.) All they see is big boobs or great personality. With stretch marks all they'll see is big boobs or great personality LOL. And here's the kicker question: so what if they see stretch marks? Are they going to have testicle lift surgery anytime soon? Bet not! Why? We don't care. And guess what, they don't care about our stretch marks either.

But seriously, I think the construction of a non-existent ideal is based on us covering up all the time and having this puritan background which makes us ashamed of our bodies to start with. My European friends are used to seeing women's bodies in all shapes, sizes, forms and ages with no one "ashamed" to be seen. That creates a different environment.

I think we also need to accept aging for what it is. My story....
My 82 year old neighbor will come to her door while wearing her yoga bodysuit. She ice skates in a little frilly outfit once a week. And she's got wrinkles that reflect all the living she's done. And she's graceful and athletic and fit and fun and smart and everyone loves her.

Now that's beauty!!!

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