Accepting Your Postpartum Body

During your pregnancy, you experienced so many body changes that made you feel strange and different. You may have experienced slight inconvenience or greater discomfort. But it was all basically okay, because you were accomplishing something really special and important – your body was creating a whole new developing person!

Now that this great task is past history, you may feel a need to move on. You may want to get back in shape and return to your fitter pre-pregnant body. Or you may sense that everyone in your life expects you to be well on the way to total recovery. You wonder when you will finally "get back to yourself".

Love Your Postpartum Body. You'll have it for a while.

Weight loss ads that feature "before" and "after" shots often include one "tiny" bothersome thing: "Ms. Before" holds an infant in her arms. Society implies that the postpartum woman ought to lose that extra weight, and fast.

News flash: Your body may never be the same. Ever. Motherhood "really" changes a woman.

And that's okay. It is.

Billboards, magazines, television and movies portray gorgeous, thin girls. They are not typical females! The features of these supermodels are airbrushed and computer enhanced. These women are often anorexic. Pressures on them to "match up to Hollywood's standards" are so great that they are often clinically depressed.

Real Moms, Real Bodies

You are a real woman, with a real life. You gave birth to a real baby. And that may mean a permanently expanded waistline, differently shaped breasts, stretch marks that no expensive cream can vanish, varicose veins that may not disappear completely, and troublesome skin.

Women change dramatically when we become mothers. We actually wear our changes on and inside our bodies. We can allow our bodies' transformations to transform us into grown up people who see the "larger" picture.

When Brenda-Fay Glik's daughter, then seven, asked Mom to name her favorite body part, she gave a deep and true answer: “My hands are my favorite, because they hold your hand and braid your hair. They build and cook, write and dance. These hands lift you up and caress your face.” 'Wow!" said the little girl. "Hands are great!" "Your turn," said Mom. The girl smiled. “My eyes are my favorite, Mommy, ’cause without my eyes, I couldn’t see you.”

Motherhood is a just whole different "dimension".

Honor your unique status of being a mother. Wear your new body with pride.

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