The postpartum body –

While walking through the bookstore or searching the internet for books that talked about early childhood education, breastfeeding and positive education, Camila could never have imagined that one piece of content would be so missed: the one that talks about the postpartum body.

Camila’s diet has always been complicated, she constantly gains weight and loses weight, always trying to be at an x ​​weight or with a y body. As soon as she got pregnant, at the age of 35, after a few failed attempts, she was taken by the joy of seeing the positive test and understanding that from then on her life would never be on the table again. She joined discussion groups on facebook, followed profiles on instagram, bought books, chatted with friends. She religiously followed the nutritional advice, took the supplements, did physiotherapy for the birth, photo shoot, revealing tea and everything else she was entitled to. As she had never done before, she showed off her belly, applied creams, lotions, oils. She climbed apprehensively on the doctor’s scale, and managed to stay within the desired 10kg range until the end of the pregnancy.

As soon as Artur was born, the puerperium swept away the fullness of breastfeeding. And along with it, the difficulty of breastfeeding: she runs with a consultant, a nurse, a doctor… she gives her breasts, cabbage leaves, sun, lanolin cream… After all, she needed to breastfeed Artur. Anyway. A friend, mother of 3 children, said it was normal, and that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if she needed to supplement or even switch to formula. That this would not define her as a mother. But Camila had the answer ready: “but breastfeeding makes you lose a lot of weight”.

When a woman becomes pregnant, like Camila, she travels through an immense sea of ​​information about motherhood, but little is discussed about the possibilities of the postpartum body. We are not talking, for example, about the mental representation that each person makes of their own body. These subjective judgments we make about our appearance we call body image.

Our body image is not identical to the real body, and is built through information that we begin to receive from childhood: criticism about weight, reinforcements about the importance of appearance, the expectation of thinness, the body of models and media muses … all this makes up, individually and collectively, the standard of beauty. This standard does not respect, for example, the transformation that the female body undergoes during and after pregnancy. Want to see an example? How many actresses and models, still in the puerperium, have their postpartum bellies reported around?

A pregnant woman’s body inevitably changes. The weight not only rises, but the hips widen for the passage of the fetus, the abdominal musculature stretches and the breast tissue increases for breastfeeding. And these structures don’t always return to their original appearance – much less happen in record time. If you take 40 weeks to form a baby, why in 40 days would your belly have to be the same?

Educating women to understand the biological and emotional changes the body is going through is essential so that they can decide how much they will suffer about it – and how much energy will be spent to change the situation.

There is no ideal weight gain

It is almost obvious – and quite reasonable – that excessive weight gain caused by overeating is unnecessary, and can even be harmful for the baby and the mother. But this does not mean that it is correct to gain weight by just 1 kg per month – the assessment of gain must be based on other data, such as the body mass index (BMI), and analyzed case by case.

Pregnancy gain does not determine postpartum loss success

Some women put on less weight but then fail to lose weight. Others gain more weight and find it easy to get back to their previous weight. A good part of the loss already happens in childbirth – According to the Mayo Clinic, an average of 6 kg is eliminated at that moment, through the baby’s exit, placenta and amniotic fluid. The rest will depend on other factors, especially food and physical activity.

Breastfeeding is not a guarantee of weight loss

There is a general idea that breastfeeding causes certain weight loss. But this is not true: as breastfeeding increases our energy expenditure, with a nutritious and balanced diet you can indeed reduce it. But this energy expenditure added to sleep deprivation can increase hunger in some mothers, and the caloric balance becomes positive. That is: some women even gain weight while they are breastfeeding.

Give it time – and understand the changes it offers.

Regardless of breastfeeding or not, weight loss can take between 6 to 12 months. I understand that some women get the scale number back earlier, and others may take even longer. It is important to understand that the kilos lost do not always represent the previous body: otherwise, you can remain eternally in a restriction where nothing satisfies, neither food, nor the body, nor the scale.

Take advantage of your baby to move your body

Dedicating yourself to a guided physical activity is great and helps (no falling for the conversation that breastfeeding can’t exercise, huh?). But don’t despair if you can’t fit into the routine. Take the opportunity to take long walks while the baby sleeps in the stroller, carry him in the kangaroo and use these moments to exercise in a more intuitive way. You are already full of demands, many of which are incomplete. Do what can be done with each one, the perfect, at this moment, is in the details.

question yourself

If you are walking the path of pregnancy, I invite you to think about some questions: Is it freedom when the will is based on external expectations? Why does the body have to return to a size, weight and shape that corresponds to a life that no longer exists? If life changes, shouldn’t the body follow this change?

Camila, from our story, could have had a smoother postpartum life if she had been informed about these details. Now, she is looking for emotional and nutritional support – and I have no doubt that with good follow-up she will get a satisfactory result. But one day Camila told me, during a consultation: imagine how much quality time I lost with Artur because I was worried about my old 62kg?

I hope that all pregnant women, current or future, manage to find a minimum of peace in this process. Loving the body is not idolizing yourself all the time, but understanding and seeing it not as an isolated part, but as a means of transforming our lives.