5 Tips for Improving Postpartum Body Image

Adjusting to our postpartum bodies is a challenging part of early parenthood. We live in a society drenched in “bounce-back” culture, making it hard to accept and love the changes that happen to our body during and after pregnancy. Here are five tips for improving your body image postpartum:

Photo of author one month postpartum.

1. Wear comfortable clothing. 

   This means wearing clothes that are your current size (not your wishful pre-pregnancy size) and also feel comfortable in a sensory way. 

   C-section scars, new stretchmarks, and lactating breasts can all feel sensitive, especially when a piece of clothing exacerbates any of that discomfort. Opt for soft, loose, stretchy, and breathable clothing. 

   If finances are a barrier to purchasing new items that feel good for your postpartum body, consider shopping at local thrift stores, joining a “Buy Nothing” group on Facebook, or asking other recently postpartum friends if they are looking to give away any of their maternity or postpartum clothing. 

2. Take a break from the mirror. 

   Sometimes looking at yourself in the mirror causes too much havoc for your brain, especially if you are prone to critical body checking.  It is okay to take a break from looking at yourself in the mirror - cover it up, take it down, or only use mirrors that are high or small enough to reflect your body from the shoulders up. 

3. Consider gradual exposure.

   Other times, it is beneficial to allow yourself to habituate to your new body. Habituation is a process of adjusting to a new stimulus. Initially, the new stimulus (our postpartum body, in this case) can cause an anxious or fear-based reaction, but the more we expose ourselves to the stimulus, the quicker that anxiety-based reaction dissipates. 

   Challenging yourself to observe, not judge, your body is key to this practice. The idea is to get used to and accept your new body without getting lost in self-criticism. This means allowing yourself to describe your body as it is now, rather than comparing it to how it used to look. Make sure to observe your body from several angles so that you don’t jump-scare when you see it from the side or the back because you’ve only been observing it from the front. 

4. Practice Appreciation

   I know, it’s easier said than done, but we have to admit that our postpartum bodies have just performed incredible, intense, amazing acts. Our bodies created, carried, and delivered a human being - is there anything more impressive than that? Can we at least allow space to appreciate our body for what it has been through and brought to us? 

5. Understand that your body, much like your brain, is forever changed. 

   Again, you just created and delivered a human being into this world. Your body had to change, and that is okay.  Just like your brain has forever shifted to adjust to becoming a parent, your body has also shifted. Plus, many of these bodily shifts make sense. Our belly-pooch can be a great place to support a baby while breastfeeding and it can make us that much softer and cuddlier for our little ones to hug. 

So as you adjust to your new post-pregnancy body, understand that you will feel a mix of emotions. Feelings of frustration and grief are valid and so are feelings of awe and gratitude.

Three Steps to Reducing Your Body Checking Behaviors

Body checking is a safety-seeking behavior driven by anxiety and worry about one’s appearance. Body checking manifests in many different ways: lifting up your shirt to see your stomach in the mirror; pinching, poking or measuring your body; tugging your shirt away from your belly; obsessing about how you look as you walk past every store window. The intention of body checking is driven by a hope that if we “check” the body and feel content with it, our anxiety will decrease and we will feel “safe” in terms of our body image.

Even though the urge behind body checking is driven by a hope to reduce anxiety, it often does the opposite by acting as a trigger for body-oriented or disordered eating thoughts. When we body check, we are giving our brain a signal to think more about how we look, and unfortunately those thoughts are typically not positive. Body checking becomes particularly problematic when it becomes compulsive and consuming of our brain space and time.

How to reduce your body checking:

1. Bring awareness to your body checking behaviors. Start to notice when you are body checking, how you are body checking, and what triggers your urge to body check.

2. Work on actively resisting the urge to body check - this might mean:

   • challenging yourself not to look at your reflection in store windows

   • covering your mirror until the urges feel more manageable

   • writing a self-affirmation on your mirror that reminds you that your body is worthy and good

   • wearing a fidget ring or bracelet and directing your anxious energy towards them when feeling the urge to body check

   The less we give in to the urge to body check, the less we will eventually want to body check.

3. Notice when your urges to body check reduce and acknowledge your success. Allow yourself to appreciate what it feels like to have less of your brain space taken up by body image thoughts.

What does daily self-care really look like?

The idea of self-care can seem amorphous and confusing. We readily associate self-care with vacations or spa days. However, we can forget that even the simplest forms of self-care can be restorative and worked into our everyday life. 

To help conceptualize this idea, imagine we are all only given so many units of energy to spend every day. The units slowly deplete throughout the day, but luckily we can gain units back through self-care. 

For example, let’s say we start each day with 25 units: 

• Starting the day after a poor night of sleep: - 1 unit 

• Commuting to work in traffic: - 3 units

• Listening to an entertaining podcast during the commute: + 1 unit 

• Giving a presentation at work: - 4 units 

• Taking a 15 minute coffee break with your favorite type of latté: + 1 unit

• Replying to work emails: - 2 units 

• Answering difficult client calls: - 4 units 

• Lunch away from the desk: + 1 unit

• Meeting with boss: - 2 units 

• Post-work yoga class: + 3 units

• Commuting home again in traffic: - 3 units 

• Making dinner (depending on how you feel about cooking): - 2 units 

• Listening to your favorite music while cooking: + 1 unit

• Having a positive conversation with your roommate or partner: + 1 unit 

• Doing after-dinner dishes: - 2 units

• Finishing laundry: - 2 units

• Taking a long shower or bath with your favorite candle lit: + 1 unit

By the end of this day, we would have depleted all 25 units of our energy. Fortunately, we worked in simple self-care activities that helped us gain back 9 units of energy. We feel tired but not completely drained. 

When we end everyday completely drained, we have to start borrowing units from the next day so that every day we are starting with less and less units to expend. This is how we end up totally exhausted and vulnerable to utilizing coping mechanisms that tempt us with instant gratification for stress reduction: drinking, smoking, bingeing, restricting, etc. 

They may say an “apple a day can keep the doctor away”, but I say “daily self-care makes you a lot less vulnerable to unhealthy coping mechanisms”. Not as catchy but just as important. 

ED's Promise of Control

“It's funny, in a human kind of way, how we can convince ourselves that we're in control at the very moment we are beginning to lose it.”

― William C. Moyers

Eating disorders promise control.

Can’t control your family dysfunction? You can control your weight instead.

Can’t keep your partner from leaving you? You can get your 18 year old body back.

Can’t prevent you and your loved ones from getting sick? You can “clean” up your eating.

At first, you do in fact feel in control, like you are putting your life in order. But who is really in control when you feel compelled to workout for hours a day, restrict your diet to the point of no longer being able to eat at a restaurant or always follow a dessert with a rush of punitive, hateful thoughts toward yourself?

When we are in the midst of an eating disorder, we feel as if we are in control. We are praised for our “will power” by outsiders but inside our brain is being controlled, not by us, but by the disorder itself, ED. ED has the power to  completely consume our life until everything we once enjoyed feels distant and gray and only ED feels important.

It may seem foreign at first to believe that you are in fact not your eating disorder and that it is possible to reconnect to you, the true healthy you. However, with the proper support, you can begin to develop an awareness of which of your thoughts and behaviors are driven by ED. You can begin to understand how these thoughts and behaviors have helped you cope. With that understanding, you can distance yourself from ED’s voice. You will then have the space to start making your own choices - choices of recovery, not the eating disorder’s choices. Instead of reacting and acting upon every demand of the eating disorder (“You must get to the gym; You must not eat carbs; You must not gain weight.”) you can begin to take back control from the eating disorder by making choices in line with your true values.  Values like being a good friend, being kind (to yourself and others), being honest, etc. When you have the ability to make your own choices, it will then be you who is control of your life, not ED.