How to love your body after babies

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Yumi
Hey ladies, I want to let you know about a podcast I think you'll really like. It's called Australian Birth Stories and it's full of really amazing stories of pregnancy, birth, conception, IVF and life postpartum. If ever there was a podcast, aside from this one of course, that leaves you thinking, holy hell, women are incredible, then Australian Birth Stories is it. Look for it wherever you get your podcasts. And we are going to meet the host of Birth Stories later in this episode.
Zali
The whole idea that our body should go back to what it was before going through that enormous process is ludicrous.
Turia
I was in awe of what my body was capable of doing.
Tegan
My relationship with my body has gone from seeing it as an ornament to seeing it as an instrument.
Sophie
We need to just kind of get out of that shift, I think, of comparing ourselves to the kind of Instagrammable mums that bounce back.
Turia
I really try and focus in on all of those things that my body does as opposed to what it looks like. And I think being a mum or giving birth has really helped me to do that.
Yumi
If you're a woman and even semi-conscious, then you know there is a hell of a lot of scrutiny of your body. We're expected to fight gravity and the passing of time to conform to a beauty ideal that's always out of reach. No matter what kind of body you have, you've probably tried to make it smaller, perkier, and more socially acceptable. These unrelenting body standards cling to us like a Kim Kardashian skim dress no matter what stage of life we're at, even in and after pregnancy. Even when we've been the incubator of new life for nine months and had our organs pushed to the side and our skin stretched to make way for the new human. Even if we've been torn asunder getting the baby out. Even if our boobs have been the breakfast, lunch, and dinner yum cha cart for our babies, there's still a pressure to shrink back down to our pre-baby selves. But what if we said hell no, hell no to the idea that we should bounce back? What if growing a baby and giving birth was actually an opportunity to change your relationship with your body? I'm Yumi Stynes, ladies, we need to talk about loving our bodies after birth. This episode is about women finding a newfound respect for their bodies after birth. And that can't be understood without finding out how they felt about their bodies pre-babies.
Turia
I'm not trying to say this to be cocky, Yumi. I was conventionally like a young, athletic, pretty woman.
Yumi
Tariya Pitt can look back with kindness at her teenage self, but at the time, she saw her body as not being good enough.
Turia
In the 90s, there was just one type of body and it was white and it was thin. I'm Polynesian, so I wasn't white, but at least I was thin.
Yumi
Even though she was always athletic and slim, Turia was still aware of the impossible body standard that lay always out of reach.
Turia
I still probably was a bit, not a bit, probably quite caught up in how I looked.
Yumi
Yeah, and the constant search for flaws and things that you could fix, improve or criticise about yourself.
Turia
Yeah, yeah, which is like not something that I came up with. It's just what you saw when you watch telly. It's inescapable, right? It's in the media, it's in the news, it's in the magazines.
Yumi
In 2011, Turia was caught in a grass fire while running an ultramarathon. She almost died and ended up with burns to 65% of her body. She lost seven fingers and had two years in hospital, having multiple surgical procedures and recovering.
Turia
I didn't like looking in the mirror. I didn't like when I saw my arms, I saw my legs, because it was so different to what they used to look like. So even when I would get changed, I would shut my eyes so I wouldn't have to see myself. I had a really good psychologist in those early stages and I told her I was doing that and she said, every time you shut your eyes, when you get changed, you're going to see a change that's sending yourself a signal that you don't like what you see.
Yumi
What were some of the things, the tiny things that were frustrating about the day to day of being in this new body after the accident?
Turia
You just want one thing, you hear me? Because there's a whole fucking list. There's a whole list of things that I find frustrating about this body that I have now. Like not having all my fingers, finding it hard to open a jar, finding it hard to open a door, finding it hard to get in and out of my wetsuit. The fact that I get really, really hot or I get really, really cold, how dry my skin can feel sometimes.
Yumi
The extent of Turia's injuries meant her doctors were worried about her having children. But Turia's always been strong-willed and babies were the plan for she and her partner Michael. So they got pregnant, then told her doctors.
Turia
Because I think we have this idea as well that when someone has a disability, you know, maybe motherhood's not for them. And I think that's really unfair. I think everyone has the right to be a mother, irrespective of whether they have a disability or not.
Yumi
Your medical team had a lot of concerns. Do you know what they were about?
Turia
No, and I've never asked because I don't really give a fuck.
Yumi
Even though she didn't particularly care what doctors thought about her getting pregnant, it turned out Terea was affected by what people said once she fell pregnant.
Turia
And like my body post-burns has done some pretty cool shit. Like I've done Ironman World Championships. I've done all sorts of cool adventure races. I've done those things after being burnt. But I think maybe just the comments that people made to me while I was pregnant about, you know, how do you think your body will handle it? Or were you booking for a cesarean? Maybe those kinds of comments made me question whether or not my body was up to the challenge.
Yumi
Turia had a pretty textbook pregnancy and birth with her first child, and with the recommendation of her obstetrician, opted for an epidural.
Turia
For my second child, I thought I want to just try and see what labour pains are like. So then either tests came in to give me an epidural and I was like, no, thanks, mate. I'll give you a call in a little bit. You know, when I start, you know, I just want to feel what this feels like. Fast forward 20 minutes, I'm screaming in pain. I'm saying, get me my fucking epidural right now. And they're all saying, no, it's too late, Turia. You've got to start pushing.
Turia
So I had Rahiti. It was a really quick labour, but it was also a very empowering experience. I felt like it was transcendent that I'd accessed all of these generations of ancestors that I have in me, that I, you know, that I was a strong woman, that I was a capable woman, that I could do hard things. I was in awe of what my body was capable of doing. What was breastfeeding like? I got really self-conscious with that, with people looking, not because I was ashamed at breastfeeding, but because maybe I felt they were judging.
Yumi
Judging you, judging your body or judging the way the child was attaching?
Turia
Maybe all of those things. Like I suppose I'm very conscious of how I parent because I don't want people to think, oh, Turia's not doing a good enough job at being a mum. And so I was always really conscious of that. Like if my son didn't latch on straight away or if he's crying, then everyone's going to think I'm a bad mum. Oh, that's really hard. Yeah. And I think just with the added layer of my burns and my disability, I was probably more aware of that. So breastfeeding in public, you know, being a bit clumsy with popping my tit out and stuff like that. You know, less so with my second child, but definitely with my first one.
Yumi
Since her accident, Terea has had to learn to adjust to the things that her body can't do. But having a baby has given her a renewed appreciation for what it can.
Turia
I think these days that I'm not always great at it, but I really genuinely try and focus on what my body can do, right? Because we can all think of a million different things that our body is shit at or that we don't love about our body. But I remind myself, like your body has given birth to two sons. You know, you've been pregnant with them and you've breastfed both of them. Your arms carry them, your legs walk them to school. You can hold their little hands, you can brush their hair, you can read them a book, you can make them dinner. So I really try and focus in on all of those things that my body does as opposed to what it looks like. And I think being a mum or giving birth has really helped me to do that.
Zali
We thought that women who had just gone through the process of growing a belly, giving birth, breastfeeding, the whole thing, we thought that they would be the most dissatisfied with their bodies. But actually, they were much more likely to be appreciative of their bodies.
Yumi
This is Zali Yager. She's the executive director of the Embrace Collective, which is a charity focused on building better body image. In her former life as an academic, Zali was part of a research team at Victoria University, looking into how women felt about their bodies after giving birth. They looked at three different categories, women with kids zero to five years old, then six to 10 years old, and finally no children at all. And what they found was that those with the youngest kids felt the best about their bodies.
Zali
They had less body shame, less self-objectification. And so that's kind of, you know, thinking of your body as an object that's there to be looked at instead of a thing that does stuff for us. And when we compared the women of even children six to 10, so it's like the effect kind of wears off as your kids get older. And then also compared to women who had never had children, it just seemed to be this protective effect of like, oh my gosh, my body has actually done something. You know, it's useful and it's done something that's really meaningful.
Yumi
Why does that feeling wane or taper down as the children get older?
Zali
I think the main reason is that, you know, when we've got that tiny baby with us, they're kind of attached to us most of the time. And everyone can see that that might be the reason why your body might be different.
Yumi
A different study from the University of Minnesota, which looked at women in the first year postpartum, found that women started getting more dissatisfied with their bodies six to nine months after giving birth.
Zali
There was just that kind of expectation coming back of, you know, needing to, I want to put it, bounce back in inverted commas always, because it's just not a thing. You know, needing to go back to a body that might conform to societal standards instead of being something that's, you know, feeding, nourishing, growing babies.
Yumi
When you say bounce back, inverted commas, is not a thing, what do you mean?
Zali
I just think that the whole idea that our body should go back to what it was before going through that enormous process is ludicrous. Now it seems so obvious to me that it shouldn't be a thing, but prior to having children, no one told you anything else other than that your belly would grow and then it would go back down again. I just think we need to talk more about the fact that bodies definitely need to change over time. Sure. It's the whole idea. But certainly, you know, all of the influences on how we feel about the way we look do come from our family, our peers, and the media that we engage with throughout women's lives. And bodies do not change over time in terms of in the movies and in the media that we see with women kind of staying relatively the same size and shape over time.
Yumi
Yeah, yeah. Do you remember when Posh Bex had her babies and it was always so much scrutiny on how she would bounce back and how thin she would kind of come out looking as really snatched, you know, weeks after she'd had a baby? Do you think that sort of intel is really damaging for women?
Zali
Yeah. And then because we see that everywhere in the media, we kind of think that's normal. And I kind of think that's one of the things social media has given us is a little bit of an insight, perhaps into like a wider range of stories of what might happen during that time and how bodies might be different for quite a long time afterwards. And so I'm really loving the fact that we do get exposure to just those bellies that still look like they have a baby in them, even though they've given birth. And the women sharing that, I think that's really helpful for people who are in that time.
Yumi
Yeah, that totally happened to me where I'd given birth and then someone said, when's the baby due? And I was like, Jesus Christ. Here it is. While there are realistic postpartum images of women on social media, there's still a ball tearing amount of snatched back pre-baby body nonsense as well. So it's important for women to act as role models.
Zali
You would know this. When you try to sit down and like get out the whiteboard and teach your kids stuff and tell them like intentional messages, they don't want to hear it. But when you swear accidentally or something, they will soak that up. And so it's, you know, it's kind of the same thing in that they're picking up messages all the time around, you know, how we look at ourselves in the mirror and then the little things that we might say and how we might respond to things. But when we can role model just little things, whenever we can remember to, when we can role model like, oh, I love that my arms can cuddle you. Just those tiny little moments of just recognizing what our body does for us instead of what it looks like. Yeah. When we can role model little pieces of that.
Yumi
I used to tell my daughters that your body's like a car. You have to drive it till you die. Like you don't get to trade it in. And I think like a lot of people think, I hate my car. I can hate it, but you still got to drive it till you die. Like just you may as well love it, treat it good and like upkeep it well, you know. I think they quite like that analogy. Yeah. Yeah.
Zali
But also like the more you like your car or the more you think your car is like special and amazing, you might put like, you might spend that two cents extra on the premium fuel.
Sophie
Some women look like they haven't had a baby five days post, but the 95% of the rest of society don't. So we have these unrealistic expectations of how our body will be.
Yumi
This is Sophie Walker. As well as being the creator and host of the Australian Birth Stories podcast, Sophie's also a mum.
Sophie
So I've got three beautiful rambunctious boys that are six, nine and 11. And my first baby boy was 4.4 kilos. So I was really big in that pregnancy. And for a bit of context, my husband's Fijian. So he's built a bit more solidly. And I think I really enjoyed pregnancy. I'd always wanted to be pregnant and have kids. And I just loved having a big belly and being able to wear clothes that kind of clung to my belly and you could just let it all hang out. I think I'd spent so many years holding my stomach in and trying to squeeze myself into sort of spanks and things. I loved that time of just being like, oh, everybody loves you being big.
Yumi
What's your relationship with your body been like throughout your life before kids?
Sophie
Yeah, prior to having kids, I think I had a really tumultuous relationship with my body. I got bullied in sort of grade six for being overweight. You know when you finish grade six and everybody signs your T-shirt and people wrote nasty things on the back of my T-shirt that you didn't see till you got home. And I think on reflection, sort of pre-menstruating, I think my hormones went wild and I put on a lot of weight suddenly. And to the point where my mum's a psychologist and she was trying to do all the things and protect my mental health, but also helped me try and reduce some of that weight to the point where we ended up going to Weight Watchers together. Yeah, which seems wild now. And I have such a great relationship with my mum that I feel like some people will be like, what? What was she doing? And I think that she was really trying to help me. But it was really difficult and I felt kind of body shamed from a young age. So I kind of hated my body and saw exercise and things as like a way of getting weight off and a negative.
Yumi
Just talking about not loving your body for many years, did that change after birth?
Sophie
Yeah, I think my road into kind of conceiving was very straightforward. So I kind of had a trust in my body there. I think it wavered when my first birth didn't go to plan. So I was like, oh, a lot of work on like, did I do something wrong? Was I not birthing well? I think having the next two births go smoothly and being able to implement a lot of things that I learnt then there was a kind of a greater sense of trust and kind of knowing in my body's strength.
Yumi
The new body that Sophie's learnt to love looks quite different from her pre-pregnancy one.
Sophie
My stretch marks almost go up to my boobs. And it's interesting now because we're a bit of a nudist household. So the boys are always like, what are those lines? What's that about? And I'm like, that's you, you stretch that out. So yeah, we try and use, I try to be as positive as I can with the boys about all sorts of things.
Yumi
Sophie is modelling the kindness to her body that Zali Yager says is so important.
Sophie
Trying to get them to kind of love their own bodies by showing that I love mine, which I do now, but I didn't for many, many years.
Yumi
So when you look in the mirror and you see the tummy pouch where the babies used to live, what's your internal dialogue saying about that?
Sophie
Yeah, it's definitely done a full shift there. I just look at it, it's housed these three wild boys, which is crazy when I look at them and how much they're changing day to day. And I think, yeah, I don't care about the kind of stretch marks and I don't care that I've got like a pouch there now because I'm able to do all the things that I want to do. I'm, you know, I've got, I'm very healthy, I'm able to exercise freely and I don't, I kind of look at all the other illness and things in society and I'm much more able to reflect and feel grateful rather than kind of hating the odd kind of different bits and pieces.
Yumi
You're the founder of the Australian Birth Stories Podcast. Listening to so many stories, do you get a sense of how women feel about their bodies after this just life-changing experience of birth?
Sophie
I think they find it very difficult in that first 12 months particularly because you're sleep deprived, you're fluctuating, trying to learn how to feed or navigate kind of, yeah, all that sleeplessness. I think people, it's very, very natural to kind of not love your body straight away and it does take a bit of time and it does take, I mean, so much of motherhood and birth is surrendering and you almost have to surrender to that at least that first year. But I mean, people argue whether postpartum's forever, but I think that that first year is really pivotal in kind of finding your feet and kind of finding a new identity and part of that is coming to accept a different body. And I think you're not the same person emotionally and physically, so it would be unrealistic for your body to look the same.
Yumi
You were talking about how you loved your pregnant body and you'd go out in tight fitting clothes and wear the jumpsuits and whatnot and people were kind of loving you and you were loving on yourself. Should we be celebrating a post birth body or a post pregnant body in the same way?
Sophie
Yeah, definitely, if not more, but I think it's hard to project that too because I think when women see other women out at cafes with newborns and things, they've probably spent quite a few hours preparing themselves and they've tried to go out the door and they've had to do a full outfit change of both the baby and the mother and things like that. But I think we don't see the kind of disheveled mother navigating all those things that are leaking and things. And I mean, I don't know, I don't feel like we should all go out with our hair dripping with sweat and milk all over us, but we need to make people aware that behind closed doors, particularly in those first six weeks, it's messy and don't kind of try and fit into a certain look. Just allow yourself that time and space to get to know your baby and to get to know yourself and your body again.
Yumi
So, Sophie, do you have any helpful ways of reframing the ideas around when you're having a wobbly time with your body?
Sophie
I just think there's so many women that would love to be in your shoes. We've just interviewed so many women that have just strived to become mothers and they would be so envious to have a deflated belly and saggy boobs right now and a baby that's kept them up all night. So, I think just trying to practice kind of self-compassion and kindness and gratitude towards the fact that you have been able to reach this point in your life because there'd be a million people wanting to trade places with you.
Tegan
I might look at myself in the mirror and have a thought about myself I'd rather not have.
Yumi
This is Tegan. She's a mum to a four-year-old girl and a freshly cooked four-month-old baby boy. Like the other mums we've spoken to, giving birth has changed how Tegan feels about her body.
Tegan
Oh, that belly might look a little bit bigger than I'd like, but it was your baby's house, you know, and would I take that back? Never in a million years.
Yumi
While she came into the studio for a chat, Tegan's very cute pudding-y baby was waiting outside.
Tegan
I just gave him a massive feed out the front actually.
Yumi
So cute! So cute. I love a little fat baby.
Tegan
He's quite a chonker.
Yumi
A chonker. Do you really feel like you're nailing it when you've got a little chonky baby?
Tegan
Yeah, there's something like almost kind of primordial about that I think.
Yumi
Oh definitely.
Tegan
The fruits of your labour.
Yumi
The fatty wrists and the little fat hands.
Tegan
Yeah, the croissant thighs.
Yumi
While we can talk endlessly about the deliciousness of a baby's fat rolls, as women we often can't find that same tenderness for our own bodies as we grow up. Starting from when she was a teenager, Teagan had a tricky relationship with how she looked.
Tegan
I would eat and exercise to punish my body. I received messages really early and very clearly that my body wasn't the ideal.
Yumi
In high school, Teagan started dating a guy who some thought was out of her league, including her teacher who told Teagan she should count herself lucky that he picked her.
Tegan
Because I wasn't one of the, I guess you know, the super gorgeous girls.
Yumi
Really?
Tegan
Yeah.
Yumi
So it was like, whoa, you did alright for yourself.
Tegan
Yeah. That was absolutely the message. And I feel when I look back on that now that that really stuck, that went in. And so it created this relationship with my body where I thought of it not as like an instrument but as an ornament.
Yumi
Did that impact how you felt having sex?
Tegan
Absolutely it did. I was not present during sex at all. It was about being as far away from the presence as I could be really. And really focusing on what was happening for my partner. And definitely not confident or comfortable. I would say that when I was younger, most of my experiences I would have used alcohol, you know, to kind of get through.
Yumi
In the couple of years before getting pregnant, Teagan started mending her difficult relationship with her body. And then when she fell pregnant for the first time, she felt that delightful sass of appreciation.
Tegan
I felt hot when I was pregnant. Like I would catch myself in the mirror and be like, ooh, she looks good.
Yumi
After the birth of her first baby, Teagan felt empowered by what her body could do.
Tegan
Giving birth is a wonderful experience, but it's also deeply traumatic to your body. Like it's a huge thing. It shouldn't be downplayed in any way. And I remember sitting up in hospital bed. I work in a maternity hospital, so I actually had her at my work.
Yumi
Wow.
Tegan
Yeah. And wanting to take her around to show my colleagues. Like literally, like, look what I did. Like I was so proud of my body.
Yumi
But when she took her baby home, Teagan was overwhelmed by the amount of work and had unrealistic expectations about what she should be able to do in those early postpartum days.
Tegan
I thought that you should go for 5k walks three days after having a baby. Like I thought that, because I didn't know any better.
Yumi
The gruelling slog of those newborn days were made harder by the fact that Teagan was still in the middle of Melbourne's now infamous COVID lockdowns.
Tegan
I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and didn't have a community around me to support me in that. And absolutely wasn't able to have anyone come into the home to care for me. I didn't really have a lot of choice other than to kind of get up and start cooking straight away and start doing the laundry straight away.
Yumi
Teagan wanted to make sure she had a different experience after the birth of her second child.
Tegan
I really rested as much as I could on the couch and took care of my body, you know, and really tried to respect it as much as I could for what it had done. I was lucky enough to have a postpartum doula who came and provided some care to me every week with a massage. And then to culminate at the end of six weeks, she gave me this beautiful ritual called a closing of the bones, where for five hours, she just absolutely loved on me. So she gave me this beautiful massage with medicated warm oil. It was divine. And then I sat in this gorgeous steam tent that she'd built and had a beautiful herbal bath. And then she wrapped me up from top to toe, like my head, my eyes, my feet. She was really paying honour and respect to me and my body as a woman who'd just given birth.
Yumi
Tegan's ceremony of getting wrapped up tight like a mummified cat might not be for everyone, but it sounds brilliant to me. And it's what she needed to feel validated. Maybe to make the transition from Egyptian mummy to yummy mummy, functional mummy, not dead mummy, happy mummy. We can actually benefit from hearing people say, hey, well done. You created life. Good job. That was really hard and you did it.
Tegan
When you conceive and then carry and then birth a baby and then feed them, you know, if that's what you do, that's enormous.
Yumi
Just hearing you say this, Teagan, feels healing for me, actually.
Tegan
Mmm, that's beautiful.
Yumi
Did it feel revolutionary for you? Especially given that you have already had a baby and done it differently. Did this version of it feel like you were doing something very bold?
Tegan
Yes, it did. It felt like I was reclaiming a lot of things and it felt like the ultimate kind of feminist act in a lot of ways. Like we're told after we have babies in lots and lots of different ways that it's about, you know, bouncing back, you know, who can get to the cafe quickest, you know, who can go to the gym quickest. And those things are fine if that's your choice. But I also think it's important to know that there's other ways and, you know, the choice to stay home and to make sure I had this beautiful postpartum care felt like I was really taking something back and saying, actually, what I've done is worth this and I am worth this as well.
Yumi
You said you used to do punishing exercise and punishing things with food. What does that mean? Can you explain what you mean by that?
Tegan
Yeah. So I'd be like, okay, well, I've eaten X, Y, Z. So I need to go and do a really tough vinyasa yoga class now. Like I need to do a hot vinyasa yoga to balance the scales really. That was what that was about. Or I haven't gone to yoga or I haven't run this week. So I can't eat that bagel that I really want. For example. Or I just feel bad about it. Like I just feel really guilty about not exercising or eating things that I shouldn't eat in inverted commas.
Yumi
Yeah. So it's sometimes it doesn't change the behaviour, but you just got guilt around it. Yeah.
Tegan
Or I felt really ashamed. It's like, oh, I probably could look like Kate Moss if I didn't eat that bagel. Finally it was just the fucking bagel. Just one bagel. But since having my kids, I feel like I don't do that at all anymore.
Yumi
Tegan doesn't just accept that her body has changed since giving birth. She has a radical love for herself.
Tegan
I feel amazing. It seems like a bit extraordinary to me. Like I probably shouldn't feel this way. I feel like that's the message that we get. But I feel incredible.
Yumi
For myself, I also found giving birth was a bit of a leveller because there I was burdened with all those imperfections, but I still made this perfect baby. But listen, before we get too smug with post-birth body love, I do want to point out that a lot of the toll taken on the body from carrying pregnancies is debited long after delivery. It's like baby now, pay later, wait 10 or 20 years and suddenly you're cashing in your pelvic floor. The prolapse collector is knocking at your door. Oh, and urinary incontinence is coming to have a word with your undies. But listen, whether you have given birth or never have and maybe never will, I will repeat what I say to my own kids. The body that you have, it's like the car you're going to be driving until the day you die. Your car might not be perfect, but it's yours and you don't get to trade it in for another one. Your beautiful, unique, chonky or otherwise vehicle that carts around your soul and your thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams. Why hate on the only car you'll ever drive? Make the best of it. It's a real tooter.
Yumi
This podcast was produced on the lands of the Gundungurra and Gadigal peoples. Ladies We Need To Talk is mixed by Ann-Marie de Bettencor. It's produced by Elsa Silberstein. Supervising Producer is Tamar Cranswick and our Executive Producer is Alex Lollback. This series was created by Claudine Ryan.