Rethinking The Snapback After Pregnancy
If you follow Ciara on Instagram, you’ve probably seen her post-baby pictures. I’m not sure if “snapping back” was her intended message but the internet sure talked about it.
Ciara also announced that she would be partnering with Weight Watchers and that she had a goal to lose weight. After seeing her post, I started reflecting on my own postpartum journey, specifically on what we call snapback.
Let me first say I didn’t receive any negative comments about my body, at least not in the way we think. I did receive comments like “oh you’re going to snap back really good" because I didn’t gain any weight during pregnancy.
Also, I may be biased on this topic because I didn’t need to snapback in the physical sense. However, I still need to work on being healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally.
I was about eight months here.
Other comments I received were in regards to my weight postpartum and me not gaining any weight. I believe people have good intentions:however, how the comments come off and how they are received, I believe, affects us.
With that being said, I tried not to pay any attention to the comments because I knew snapping back was not that important to me at the time. And then I had an epiphany- Do I really need to snap back? Am I really supposed to snap back?
We (moms) carried a baby for nine months. Then went through labor. Then experienced the postpartum life —what they call “the fourth trimester.” (They don’t tell you about the cramping and bleeding but that’s for another post). All of this is a lot of work. You basically did build-a-baby in your belly (insert laughing emoji). Besides all of this work, your body is literally healing during the postpartum stage. Some women have stitches. Some women have hemorrhoids. The uterus is shrinking back and we basically have a wound in our womb. This is why it’s recommended to wait six weeks to have sex.
So we go through all of this but out of all things people want to make comments about our body. Or we put the pressure on ourselves.
“Ladies, please give yourself grace and patience. Please give yourself time to rest.
”
When I really started to think about it, I think it’s safe to say that our bodies will never be the same. I didn’t get bigger feet or gain weight but for me I lost my butt, literally. I don’t know another why to describe it.
Once I came to this realization, it was a wrap for me. Correct me if I’m wrong but usually the snap back refers to getting back to the way you were before having a baby. But what we going back to?? Our lives are forever changed and will never be the same. I was even told that our hormones don’t get back to normal until two years after giving birth. Just food for thought…
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t think there’s anything wrong if you want to snap back. However, I would prefer to focus on being healthy and recommend this too.
After having my son, I gave myself 3-6 months before I even thought about eating right, exercising, or getting back to my career. I say eating right only because I experienced nausea and lost my appetite so I wanted to make up for all the food I didn’t get to eat (laughing emoji).
At the end of the day, I wanted to give myself time to adjust and time to just be with my baby.
So maybe we and/or society have put an unfair expectation or pressure on us? We as a society need to focus more on the health and state of baby and mom, and not appearance.