pregnant again ?

Intrigued?
What do you think about body positivity?

No, I am not pregnant again:) This is how I look 5 months postpartum and my bump is a half of the size it was after child birth.
There are different views to body positivity and a different understanding on what this movement stands for too.

If we check Wikipedia it says:
Body positivity is a social movement initially created to empower and shed light on plus size women and men, while challenging the ways in which society presents and views the physical body. The movement advocates the acceptance of all bodies regardless of physical ability, size, gender, race, or appearance.

I do promote body positivity & my view is the following. Being positive about your body doesn’t mean you are welcome to eat fast food every day gaining excessive weight and promoting it under body positivity. To me body positivity is an acceptance of your body & it’s different conditions throughout a life. Being positive about your body means you love it as it is & take a good care of it. Taking care = you do what you can to keep it in a good health & you nourish and cherish it. It is not about storming a gym or dieting, but it’s treating your body and all it’s changes with respect. Am I positive about my body? hmm it’s complicated 🙂

Pregnant body and postpartum body require even more love and respect and it can be difficult to accept.

During my latent labour stage I and my husband spent quite a lot of time in Southmead Hospital and every day we saw couples heading home with their newborns. I remember we were passing by one couple with their newborn and my husband asked me about postpartum belly in a typical man’s way “how come she is pregnant again?” 😀
The reality is a little bit cruel – you might look 4-6 months pregnant after birth and it can last for months or even years. I did have realistic expectations, I thought, but the reality went above and beyond them.
I was shocked when I saw the size of my belly next day after delivering a baby. I looked like 6 months pregnant. It was not only the size that was worrying me, but the way it felt – like a little alien inside me. I knew that a lot of women have a mummy tummy and I accepted the fact that I must be one of them, but it is still really hard to be positive about it. In a hospital and few weeks after our baby was born i was saying to myself that once my body’s recovered I should be able to get back to my normal size or at least close to it. I’m 5 months postpartum and it has not happened yet. WHY?

I have a diastasis recti. Diastasis recti is the partial or complete separation of the rectus abdominis, or “six-pack” muscles, which meet at the midline of your stomach. From what i know now diastasis recti is very common during and following pregnancy. This is because the uterus stretches the muscles in the abdomen to accommodate your growing baby. After delivery, the most noticeable symptom is a bulge or “pooch” in your belly area. Even though you’re no longer pregnant, it might look like you still are. No diet can help you loosing a mummy tummy unless you fix your 6-pack, so don’t fall into a dieting trap.

Postpartum treatment for diastasis recti usually involves pelvic floor and deep stomach muscle exercises. Always check with your doctor and get their approval before you start exercising after delivery. After you get the OK, follow a specialized workout for diastasis recti.

The sad fact is that i have never heard about diastasis before i was diagnosed with that. Not even any of my mum friends or mummies from the groups I am in were talking about this! Also my GP failed to diagnose me with diastasis during my first 8 weeks postnatal examination. I was eating healthy, exercising a lot, breastfeeding exclusively (breastfeeding mums can loose up to 500 calories a day) and could not understand why am I still having a bump. So almost 3 month after child birth when i requested an additional examination due to severe discomfort, i was told that i have a gap in my tummy muscles and apparently i made it worse by rope skipping and doing HIIT (high intensity interval training), which i was originally told i was fine to do. So with diastasis 3cm and more you should not be doing certain exercises as they can increase the gap. Less is more – you can generally take it as a rule with the postpartum body! Having someone explained that to me in time would have probably not lead me to a condition I got to physically and mentally. I went into distress and I felt so sorry for myself, for my body and for not getting this diagnosed and treated in time. I don’t even want to think what could have happened if I did not start ringing the bell and requesting another examination. And even then I did not get enough support from NHS. I was referred to a Physio therapy in November 2020 and almost 3 months later I am still in the queue. I received an apology in writing from that GP who failed to diagnose a severe diastasis, but to be honest it didn’t make me feel any better. I’d rather have them pushed my Physio therapy queue as an apology.
Currently I do a physio therapy privately (luckily I have an insurance). I also do workouts focused on women’s diastasic recti and learn how to accept my body as it is, love and appreciate it regardless.

I hope you find this article helpful and perhaps will learn from it. If you have a concern, raise it, ask for a second and third opinion. Do the right thing. Follow your instincts. Be curious and ask questions.

Used sources:
https://www.healthline.com/
http://postnatalexercise.co.uk/diastasis-recti/