Woman Shares After-Baby Body Photos to Inspire Body Acceptance
Pre-baby weight is a highly sought-after goal for many moms out there, but one woman doesn’t think it necessarily should be.
Autumn Meyer, a blogger and mother to a four-year-old and a seven-year-old, is sick of the shame post-baby bodies receive, so she posted two after-baby photos of her belly, taken just seconds apart: On the left, you see her belly looking “normal” and very pre-baby, but covered by yoga pants. On the right, she pulls down the top of her pants to reveal her belly as it really looks after creating two human beings.
A post shared by Autumn (@awholestory) on Mar 6, 2017 at 3:15pm PST
“Both are strong and capable, worthy of acceptance, love and my appreciation,” Meyer began her caption on Instagram. “However, Both are not culturally acceptable, or celebrated, or ‘ok’. The signs of growth and birth and change are marks that I’m marketed to ‘erase’, ‘shrink’, ‘diminish’ and scrub away via ‘clean eating’,” she continued. “I reject that. I reject that there’s anything about my body, born out of healing, balance, and love that is dirty,” she proclaimed defiantly. “I reject that mothers need to erase all outside indicators of our motherhood. I embrace this body in acceptance, neutrality, and sometimes total love,” she concluded, hashtagging #healthyisthenewskinny.
It’s true; by putting pre-baby bodies on a pedestal and working so hard to return to that, we are tossing away the proof of the miracles of which our bodies are capable.
“I chose to post this image to normalize the many ways in which women’s bodies age and are affected by childbirth,” Meyer told Yahoo Beauty. “I also wanted to highlight how what is presented on Instagram isn’t always the whole truth. I wanted to kick back at the marketing and messaging women are bombarded with daily; that we should be small, smooth, always working to shrink, diminish, and hide the ways that life experience have changed us.”
Meyer told Yahoo Beauty that she hasn’t always had the confidence and strength to post something as revealing as this. But after being assailed with message after message (read: unrealistic Instagram post or ad) that she should look different, she had enough. “It’s been a long road of choosing to unfollow accounts that filled my feed with body shaming language and claims of products that would ‘fix’ my (broken?) body, and instead following body positive, self-acceptance focused, and shameless women.”
Of course, as unrealistic as some societal standards are, so is snapping yourself into security and strength just because a woman like Meyer posted something inspiring and honest. But we all know social media is influential, and Meyer found success by taking control of her newsfeed. “Realizing that social media is really influential and shifting what I took in daily had a huge effect on how I viewed my self,” she said.
And so far, Meyer’s gotten a great response from “a lot of women who are in desperate need of this encouragement, image, and reminder that their bodies are good bodies. That all bodies are good bodies.”
One follower summed it up in two words: “Amen sista! #LoveYourTemple.” Another woman expressed her need for Meyer’s post. “I needed this so much today. I really felt badly about myself after my son was born because no one had EVER seen stretch marks like mine before. (Right) Even the doctor would gasp. I was a healthy, curvy mom, gained the appropriate amount of weight but just had a big baby and my skin is SO sensitive. It made me feel like because my skin wasn’t perfect after birth that I was a loser. Despite all the oils and lotions during and after, nothing helped. It’s taken me a year to feel and look at my stomach with love as the redness fades. Thank you for sharing your story. All your stories on here have been ‘life changing’ moments for me.”
Other women proved that Meyer is right, that deep down women are proud of what their bodies can do and want to show it. “I was recently told that I don’t even look like I have had two kids. I know it was suppose to be a compliment but it felt insulting. I worked hard to carry and birth my babies. Why can’t a mother’s body be celebrated for the miracle that it is,” one follower wrote.
As with any honest post, this one’s unfortunately garnered a few negative remarks as well. “I’ve gotten a few troll comments and emails, mostly that ‘there’s nothing inspirational’ about a body like mine.” OK … that’s just false. “But I let that roll off. I’m confident and strong, body and heart.”
Note: This article was updated on March 10th to reflect that the photos were taken seconds apart, and not images of Meyer’s pre- and post-baby body, as originally reported.
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