Celebrating mom bods, #nofilter
This photographer gets it.
We know that pregnancy is not all sunshine and rainbows with a bundle of joy at the end. Mom bodies goes through their own transformations, far from the picture-perfect pregnancies we see on Instagram. You could really turn it into an ‘expectations vs reality’ TV show. Some sail through their trimesters whereas for others, it can be more like an extreme sport with somebody playing kabaddi in your belly. While the ‘dad bod’ has become the internet’s new love, there’s barely any allowance for women to embrace their postpartum selves even though moms spend 9 months baking new life. Mom bodies get hidden under layers of fabric while sweating away at the gym trying post-pregnancy workouts that could end up doing more damage than good.
“Until the day the baby is born, you’re the most important person in any room. But suddenly, you’re the second or the third or the fifth most important,” says Neha Dhupia. You’re expected to snap back to being who you were (and looked like) after childbirth, but few people get to see the reality of postpartum.
Canada-based photographer Megan Eleman seeks to change that. A mom herself, she’s been using her Instagram page to showcase a series of photographs that beautifully capture real women’s post-pregnancy bodies – in every shape and size.
“Women go through an evolution after birth, I think especially after the first one—and your postpartum body is a part of that,” she said in an interview with Health magazine. “During my last few days of pregnancy, I finally got stretch marks. I remember feeling so devastated…but I’m like, for what? My body housed my perfect daughter and I would go through war for her again and again. So the photos were really an opportunity for me to join with fellow mamas and see and understand that the postpartum body varies so much, and that there really isn’t a normal.”
Like pregnancy itself, there’s no one size fits all with everything that comes after. Eleman wants her photo series to inspire other women, especially mothers, to be comfortable in their skin. Whether you embrace your new self or work towards going back to your previous weight – that there’s no ideal pregnant or post-pregnant woman.