ExpectingWords.com » Self-Image

Does Pregnancy Ruin Your Body?

Laurie — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:46:07 +0000

That’s the question people are asking after “Biggest Loser” star and personal trainer Jillian Michaels told a Women’s Health reporter that she never wants to be pregnant. “I’m going to adopt. I can’t handle doing that to my body,” she told the magazine. Hearing a fitness expert make such a statement shocked a lot of people.

While Huffington Post and other news outlets reported her as saying that she won’t “ruin her body” with pregnancy, writer and natural health consultant Juniper Russo Tarascio took personal offense to Jillian’s comment:

In a recent interview, “Biggest Loser” star and personal trainer Jillian Michaels insulted every mother in the world– including many of her biggest fans. Michaels claimed that she wanted to adopt children rather than give birth naturally, because she could never tolerate the damage that pregnancy would cause her body….[But] if you take good care of your body, pregnancy is no big deal…. As a fitness expert herself, Jillian Michaels should be well aware of this reality.

A commenter named Gelfing on Huffington Post found truth in Jillian’s admission:

Pregnancy with twins 11 years ago didn’t “ruin” my body; but, it’s true, my abs will never be the same. I was ripped, with a tiny waist before. No amount of exercise will bring them back, and I am obsessive about going to the gym. Pregnancy does change your body.

However, I look at my sons every day and feel a type of joy and love that I had never experienced before becoming a mom. My feeling is, you just don’t get that kind of feeling of love and sense of purpose looking at your perfect body in the mirror every day. But it’s her body and her life.

My opinion is that Jillian’s comment should be put in context. First, we live in a culture that idealizes thinness. She admits to being overweight as a child and it’s possible that weight is a defining part of her identity. I can understand how someone who already has body image issues and anxieties would become increasingly stressed and depressed by pregnancy weight gain. I feel pretty good about my body, but even so, I remember when I stepped on the scale and saw a weight that was nearly 25 pounds more than I had ever seen before. My eyes bulged out!

At this point my body is back to what it used to be, but even if it wasn’t, my body is not how I make my living. For Jillian, it is. And this brings me to my second point. Jillian is an individual and she should make the choice that’s best for her. Pregnancy would force her to alter her intense workouts. If she can’t handle changing her fitness routine, then she should not get pregnant. At least she knows her limits and admits them. For that, I give her credit.

What do you think about Jillian’s comment? How did pregnancy change your body?

Top 5 Rude Comments Pregnant Women Field

Laurie — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:41:18 +0000

Two days after I gave birth at a hospital in Manhattan, my husband and I joyfully embarked upon our ride home with our new baby boy. We videotaped our efforts to hail a cab (we decided a cab would be easier than parking our car in a garage blocks away), fumble with the car seat and buckle in our baby boy. As I tended to my boy in the back of the taxi, everything was wonderful, until I overheard the driver joke to my husband sitting in the front seat, “When she’s due? She looks like she still has a bun in the oven.” NOT FUNNY! And my husband didn’t miss a beat admonishing the driver. But, having been through nine months of pregnancy, I had already heard it all.

I don’t know of any pregnant mom who doesn’t have a story that begins with, “You won’t believe what someone said to me!” Often, I couldn’t.

1. “You look like you’re getting fat.“
My friend, who avidly reads this blog (thank you!), announced her pregnancy at work about four months in. Her boss’s response? “Oh so that explains your belly bulge. I didn’t think you were the kind of woman who would let herself go like that.”

2. “I’ll bet you’re having twins.“
Another friend was asked, “Do twins run in your family? You’ve gotten so big so fast that I think you might be having twins. You should really ask your doctor to look closer at your next ultrasound.”

3. “Wow. You’re having another baby? Was it an accident?
If you face a question like that, change the topic with tact, “You sure know how to make a pregnant woman feel special!” Whether you’re pregnant with number two or you’re aiming to be like Mrs. Dugger with 19 kids, that’s your business.

4. “If you breastfeed, you’ll burn an extra 500 calories a day!”
Please, don’t add a body image reason for why we absolutely have to breastfeed. And moreover, burning more calories is nice, but it apparently makes you hungrier. Selma Hayek exclaimed on the Oprah Winfrey show that breastfeeding could have helped her lose weight, as long as she was willing to also endure constant hunger.

5. “Sleep now because you’ll never sleep again.“
First of all, most pregnant women have trouble sleeping, so it’s not easy to practice this well-intentioned advice. And second of all, whatever happens will happen, so why stress us out in advance? We do know that everything is going to change after the baby arrives. Pregnancy doesn’t lower our intelligence quotient so we are quite capable of reading books and blogs to know what to expect.

So my pregnant friends, I urge you to discard the rude comments from your relatives, co-workers, friends and strangers. But do share them with your partner to be sure he doesn’t add to your list of rude pregnancy comments. And for the dads-to-be reading this post, please, please counteract the rudeness by complimenting your pregnant partner’s beauty once a day!

Ladies, whatever jabs you get while pregnant, remember that the rude stream of comments has an end date so take them in stride. Then you can move on to reading the Top 10 Things New Moms Don’t Want to Hear, written up quite nicely at the BellyItch blog.

Gals, what rude comments did you hear while pregnant? What did you say back to the person? Guys, what do you really think about your pregnant lady’s egg-shaped figure? Do you talk to her about her appearance truthfully, semi-truthfully or do you plead the fifth?

Sex Talk: Post-Pregnancy

Laurie — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:46:54 +0000

What really goes on behind the bedroom doors? I interviewed 12 women from around the country and found out that lies and more lies rest between those satin sheets. Let’s just say that names have been changed to protect the guilty.

“I went to the doctor six weeks after I gave birth and he told me it was okay for me to start having sex again. Yeah right!” said Sarah from New York in response to her doctor’s suggestion. “I was exhausted and my boobs were for one person only – the baby. When I got home I might have twisted the truth just a bit. I told my husband that the doctor said I had to wait two more months.”

Jodi from Los Angeles shared, “A couple months after I had a C-section, we had sex again,” “Five months later, I’m still rarely in the mood, but I pretend I am because he does things for me that he doesn’t really want to do. It’s only fair. Plus, sex puts him in a better mood, which makes both of our lives better. Sometimes I’ll even initiate sex in the morning knowing it will lead to us having a good day together. Sometimes I get the sense that If I don’t have sex with him he feels like I don’t love him.”

“Once I got pregnant we only had sex on the weekends,” explained Rachel from Philadelphia. “I was just too tired during the week. My husband totally understood. But we both thought things would go back to normal after the baby came. That didn’t happen. It really hurt when we had sex. The doctor told me to just keep having sex and my body would get used to it. So, I decided not to mention the discomfort anymore to my husband. We kept having sex and within a couple months, it felt good again.”

The message was clear: Sex during pregnancy was good, but there was less of it, and it took a while after pregnancy for sex to feel good again because of exhaustion, breastfeeding and vaginal discomfort. What startled me most was not the temporary change in people’s sex lives; it was that so many of the women lied to their partner.

Robin from New York lied to protect her husband’s feelings: “I knew my husband was hurt that I didn’t want to have sex with him, so I blamed the doctor.” Another new mom lied because she worried that the truth would make her less appealing: “If he knew what was going on down there, he wouldn’t have been attracted to me for a long time to come. So, I kept that information to myself and we had sex sooner than I would have liked.”

The problem with lying is that it is a shortcut to a bad relationship. Men can handle the truth and we underestimate them by lying. The reality is that if you want your man to be a full partner in the relationship, then he has to know all the facts to help make the right choices. If he’s pressuring you for sex, but you haven’t sat down and had a difficult, somewhat embarrassing emotional conversation about what sex feels like for you right now, then it’s your fault if he’s being a jerk. Share your feelings, physical pains and discomforts, just enough so that your partner can understand the sacrifice you are making for the family. Let him know that this is only temporary and you can’t wait to be ripe for love again.

And for the men, I’m not giving you a free pass either. Do you realize how uncomfortable it is for you wife to talk about what is going on inside of her? Do you know that whether or not your wife had a c-section, the hormone changes resulting from breastfeeding can make sex downright painful for some? You have to step up to the plate and give your wife the reassurance that even if the doctor gives an okay to sex at the 6-week post-birth appointment, you are comfortable with waiting until she feels ready. Remember, she is on your team. Don’t you think she is disappointed that it takes a few months for her body to heal? She would love to be less exhausted and in the mood for sex like she was before the little bundle of joy arrived. You have to ask her to be honest with you and then support whatever you hear.

Now let me add a little optimism to this post: Almost all of the women said that within a year after pregnancy, their sex lives returned to “normal,” whatever that was for them. So remember that the effect of pregnancy on one’s sex life is temporary, at least until the next baby comes along…

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Mayo Clinic, Sex after pregnancy: Let your body set the pace
Baby Center, Sex after Childbirth
About.com, 10 Tips for Great Postpartum Sex

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