Parenting

Here Are All The Reasons People Need To STFU About 'Post-Baby Bodies'

by Julie Scagell
Image via Facebook/Tova Leigh

Our bodies go through enough during pregnancy, can we please give ourselves a break?

UK based actress and writer, Tova Leigh, just dropped a new video on her Facebook page that 100 percent of women can relate to (and if you can’t, please go far, far away). In it, she describes herself as still looking “six months pregnant” after having her last child and is here to tell us she could care less. And if we find ourselves in a similar situation, neither should we.

Leigh understands the pressure we feel to get back to their pre-pregnancy weight 30 seconds after we deliver our babies and has a few words to help us reset our expectations. Leigh believes we have more important things to worry about, like “Getting our organs back to where they’re actually supposed to be inside our bodies and “that (our) liver is not shoved up (our) throat.”

Leigh writes about motherhood, women, and body image on her website, and in her latest video tackles the ever-present issue of the expectation for women to squeeze out a baby then wear their pre-pregnancy jeans home from the hospital. She is the mom to “three beautiful know-it-all divas” — so she’s an expert .

Image via Facebook/Tova Leigh

As our bodies are trying to get our internal organs back to where they are meant to be, some of us also have to deal with our sweet little angels ripping us back to front like a goddamn horror movie. “God bless him with that big head ripped the shit out of us so we’ve got like 300 stitches down there,” Leigh says in the video.

Image via Facebook/Tova Leigh

Then, there is the first poop (I still have flashbacks almost six years later) or “waking up in a puddle of milk” from leaking. Nipples are circular sprinklers, ladies — that stuff gets everywhere.

The bottom line is our bodies just birthed another human, which is a miracle unto itself, and we need a little time to recover. The last thing we should worry about is how flat our stomachs look. Leigh talks about society’s obsession for new mothers to “bounce back.” Because there is nothing more important than how a woman looks. Nothing.

Leigh cautions women who are taking time to get back in shape not to compare themselves to Instagram pictures of celebrities or even the girl you went to elementary school with who just had a baby yesterday and “accidentally” admits she already weighs what she did in junior high. No one is buying your shit, Debbie.

Image via Facebook/Tova Leigh

Leigh says these women may appear as if they are the same woman as before they had a baby, but “I guarantee you when she sneezes, she pisses herself a little bit. Just like the rest of us.” All of us are dealing with something, and the last thing we need is to feel like we are failing because we look like we just gave birth. Because, HOLY SHIT, we just gave birth.

Motherhood is magnificent and also scary, exhausting, thankless and humbling. Whatever you are feeling in a moment, know there are millions of other mothers who have felt the same way, especially when it comes to losing the baby weight. We are here to tell you in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. Not even a little bit.

“It’s safe to say we have some other issues to worry about,” Leigh explains. “So PISS OFF.”