Baring bodies after babies
November 5, 2010
Allison Cross
STAFF REPORTER
Damaged, deflated, stretched-out and strong — all words mothers have used to describe their bodies after pregnancy.
On the website The Shape of a Mother women aren’t only talking about their new bodies. They’re showing them to the world.
Mothers share images of their jagged scars from a Caesarean-section, wrinkled belly skin, stretch marks and sagging breasts. Some have abdomens that show no outwards signs of having carried a child.
“It occurred to me that a post-pregnancy body is one of this society’s greatest secrets,” writes Bonnie Crowder, the site’s creater and mother of a girl, 8, and son, 5. “All we see of the female body is that which is airbrushed and perfect, and if we look any different, we hide it from the light of day in fear of being seen.”
Faces and full names aren’t usually included in the posts on the site started in 2006, and few mothers look anything like supermodel Heidi Klum, who strutted down the runway in a 2007 Victoria’s Secret fashion show eight weeks after giving birth with a remarkably smooth and toned abdomen.
Along with images, mothers from around the world tell stories about loving their children fiercely while struggling to lose extra weight and feeling physically “ruined” by pregnancy.
Women don’t often see bodies of different shapes and sizes in media and online, which makes the mothers feel abnormal, Crowder says in an interview from her home near San Diego, Calif.
“We think we’re unusual,” says Crowder, 32. “We think that we’re the wrong ones when in reality we’re totally normal . . . there’s no one answer in terms of what you’re supposed to look like.”
She calls her accepting her own post-baby body a “process.”
“I am still on my journey to body and self-love, but I am so very much farther along than I once was,” Crowder says. “Running (the site) has helped me so much by simply normalizing all different shapes of bodies.”
There’s still little like this website elsewhere on the web.
The occasional art exhibit portrays mothers’ naked bodies, Crowder says, but there are few opportunities for women to connect by sharing their photos and stories online.
Crowder is occasionally accused of “scaring” away would-be mothers and not showing a diverse enough selection of mothers. “But I think there’s a pretty good representation of different types of bodies on there,” she says. “And I can only show what I’m sent.”
Showing her post-pregnancy body to the Internet, even with her face blurred, is not something Meg Case of Toronto believes she could do.
Mother to an 8-month-old daughter, Case, 30, said she underestimated how much time it would take for her body to return to its pre-baby weight. Losing the last 10 pounds has proven challenging.
“It’s a bit of a mind game because you’re so big and then you have this baby and you feel like you’re shrinking at this amazing rate,” Case said. “But then you realize you still don’t fit in the clothes you wore (before) pregnancy.”
“I admire people who can (post their photos),” she said. “And . . . if I saw it, it would make me feel better, but I don’t think I’d put my own up.”
Case says the changes to her body don’t mean much when she thinks about carrying her daughter for nine months.
“I think it’s such a female thing, to be conscious of your body,” she said. “But having my daughter, I don’t care what size my jeans are.”