After having children, women are likely to experience stretch marks, loose skin, scarring, or a changed body shape – and plenty of unwelcome comments.
Mum-of-four Danisha Lestaevel has shared videos demonstrating how her body has changed drastically throughout her postpartum journey on TikTok.
In one video, she shared her exposed stomach and talks about how “ women get body shamed for having children…”
She opens up about some of the intrusive comments she has received from people reacting to her body changing.
“Exercises will prevent that”, “you should have moisturised”, and “you gained too much weight” are just some of the obnoxious remarks she has received since giving birth.
One person, clearly forgetting that all women’s bodies are different, made a comment saying, “but my belly doesn’t look like that and I had children”.
Following the video she posted, most commenters offered her reassurance. One person pointed out, “literally every single body is different and will look different during and after pregnancy”.
Another person highlighted the hypocrisies between how we treat men and women saying, “men are praised for their “dad bod” beer guts and women shamed for literally growing and birthing a whole human, makes my blood boil”.
Someone else said, “we also get shamed when we don't have children, go figure…either way it feels like we can't win”.
Adjusting to life after a baby is difficult enough, no mum needs the added pressure of image worries on top of it.
Unfortunately, it’s external forces that usually drive most of our body image hangups; media, influencers, peer pressure and a misogynistic society.
Perhaps normalising body diversity will help new mums know that they are not alone.
