Postpartum Bounce Back Body Culture

Unrealistic. Unattainable. Unattractive. Unworthy.

The postpartum bounce back culture that has been created in our society is beginning to become toxic. Social media and Hollywood are flooded with unrealistic and unattainable expectations for postpartum women that leave them feeling unattractive and unworthy.

As women, our bodies do incredible things! God has ordained our bodies to form, carry, and birth new life into this world - which is nothing less than a miracle. However, often times those pregnancies can take a big toll on women. Things stretch and curve in new ways, leaving proof behind for all to see. The numbers on the scales increase, expectedly and healthily, but we are conditioned to be shocked by them and want the lower end of the expected numbers. We become swollen from face to feet, feeling squishy and exhausted. And all of this is while carrying that precious babe within us.

Then, our bodies continue to do miraculous things as they deliver our prayed over child. No step is easy, but perhaps the hardest step of all is the postpartum recovery and the expectations our society has placed upon mothers in their most vulnerable state.

The bounce back culture around us sets a standard that after those six weeks of recovery, mothers should be ready to get back into their exercise routine, maybe add a diet in there, lose the excess baby weight, and fit back into their pre-baby clothes. This trend is putting unnecessary and unhealthy expectations upon a body that is not ready to fully recover yet. Our bodies take forty weeks to grow a healthy baby and us mothers need to be reminded that forty weeks will not be reversed in six weeks.

We need to all work together to reverse this bounce back culture in a way that removes the pressure / expectation to bounce back to our smaller size and instead focuses on a better mental and emotional health in the postpartum phase.

Postpartum is hard. Our hormones are trying to figure out how to stabilize again. Our uterus is contacting down to a smaller size again. Breastfeeding is more difficult than anyone wants to talk about. We are getting very little sleep. Having to juggle sleeping, drinking enough water, eating enough calories, and maybe even caring for other kids. It’s not easy! There is an emotional and mental toll that is taken in the postpartum phase.

Instead of setting unnecessary, unhealthy, unrealistic, unattainable expectations that leave us feeling unattractive, unworthy, and unable - let’s instead shift the focus to what is necessary and heathy, to focusing on what is realistic and attainable so we can feel attractive, worthy, and able in our most vulnerable state.

Instead, let’s shift the focus not to what our bodies look like compared to the pre-baby photos, but how our mentality is doing, how our nutrition is doing, how our well-being is doing. That six-week postpartum visit should not include a return to work, ‘all-clear’ notice where women are expected to be fully recovered. What it should include is a referral for pelvic floor strengthening therapy, a mandatory three session mental health visit with the option to continue those visits if needed, and more support from a lactation / nutrition standpoint. We all need to work together with health care providers and society to change the conversation around what postpartum should look like.

Let’s work together to change the culture surrounding postpartum expectations. Let’s shift the conversation to emotional and mental health over physical fitness. Let’s acknowledge that what took forty weeks to grow may take another forty plus weeks to shrink. Let’s be okay with that and still feel attractive, worthy, as able in that. Let’s do it together.

Let’s continue the conversation:

1. Have you experienced pressure from the bounce back culture we live in?

2. How did pressure in the postpartum stage play a role in your mental and emotional wellbeing?

3. What would you go back and say to yourself in those initial postpartum days?