Mother of Two Shares Postpartum Photo to Show ‘Realistic’ Side of Giving Birth
The mother of two said women shouldn't feel pressured to have their body look a certain way right after giving birth. It took four days for Kristen Sullivan to find the courage to post this photo.
“This is probably the most intimate photo I’ve ever shared, so I had some reservations, worried about the negative comments that were sure to come,” the 35-year-old mother. “But with a gentle push from my extremely supportive husband, I got over it and shared it, knowing that so much of the mom community on Instagram would be appreciative.”
“I’m certainly not the first one to share anything like this, I just think messages of all types of postpartum bodies should be shared more often, so new moms aren’t always thinking that there is only one way we should be ‘bouncing back,'” she says, adding we should get rid of that phrase altogether.
“I’m sharing this to show moms that sometimes it doesn’t matter if you’re thin, ate right and exercised during pregnancy, sometimes your body grows in such a way that simply doesn’t allow you to ‘bounce back’ in three weeks,” she wrote on the social media site. “I feel like all I’ve been seeing is new moms sharing their amazing postpartum bods, 11 days after birth, two weeks after birth, etc… And while that’s wonderful for them, for many others, know that it’s not realistic.”
37 weeks
The left photo is 3 weeks postpartum, the right photo is 9 weeks.
The left pic is 3 days before giving birth, the right pic is 3 weeks postpartum.
Almost 1 year postpartum.
19 months postpartum.
