Pregnancy and childbirth is a joy , but it’s also an incredibly painful end exhausting experience . While many people know and talk about the pains of actual childbirth , less think about how carrying a small human in your body for most of a year can affect you.
In fact, pregnancy changes a lot about your body , and some of those changes can carry on post-partum.
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Not to mention the fact that your skin stretches to make room for the growing fetus.
In many cases, people who undergo pregnancy will have stretch marks due to the stretching that happens in the stomach area.
Then there’s the baby bump itself.
If you (or you partner) have never had a baby, you might not realize that the baby bump (which is responsible for stretch marks in the first place) doesn’t go away right after childbirth.
In fact, it can take upwards of a year for the bump to go down completely.
While a baby bump can begin to shrink within the first few days of giving birth, it can take 6 to 12 months for it to go away completely .
But no one really talks about this, and it leaves many women feeling bad about themselves.
That’s why moms like Danisha Lestaevel ( who goes by @mama3x__ on Instagram ) are so important. Lestaevel uses her platform, including her TikTok account , to show what a body looks like after giving birth.
She recently gave birth to her fourth child, and her postpartum body is still in recovery.
With things like snapback culture and the shame many women carry when their bodies don’t look the way they did before pregnancy, Lestaevel is showing the world a more normalized look through her own perspective.
She has been documenting her postpartum baby bump through social media, showing the world how she looks after having her child.
” Initially, it was extremely hard for me to show the world my postpartum body due to the fear of what others might think…” she told BuzzFeed.
But her pictures and videos have empowered a lot of moms going through the same thing.
“…as I posted, I started receiving positive feedback that made me feel so honored to be a voice for women and showcase what postpartum can look like and that it’s completely normal.”
Her TikToks are being viewed countless times.
One video where she showed her body two weeks postpartum raked in 1.5 million views, as well as comments with people both sharing support and thanking her for normalizing how bodies look postpartum.
Many users even shared their own similar stories.
One commenter wrote, “thank you for showing what a REAL postpartum belly looks like! mine looks the same I’m tired of celebrities showing flat bellies 2 weeks after birth.”
Lestaevel’s posts are doing a lot to empower women, whether they have experienced childbirth, or if they plan to.
“I want people who don’t have children to know that not all bodies are the same and that snapback culture is extremely toxic, as it puts unrealistic beauty standards and expectations on a high pedestal.”
