New Mum Shares Honest Photos Of Her Post-Baby Belly In A Bid To Help Women Embrace Theirs

Learning the ropes, running on no sleep, up to your eyeballs in nappies - becoming a mum is hard enough without the added pressure of losing the baby weight and bouncing back into shape. So why do we all do it to ourselves? Worse still, why do we do it to each other? This new mum is embracing her post-baby belly and now she's encouraging other mums to do the same.

Some women like to post photos of their newborn alongside their taut abs, flawless eyelashes and perfectly styled hair, other women like to lay it all bare - scars, stretch marks, discolouration and puffy eye bags in tow. Some women choose to work really hard to lose their baby weight and others dig deep and learn to embrace the changes and the challenges of a post-baby body. Either way, it's whatever works for you. We're all real women and our bodies are all real - however harsh we are towards them when we enter motherhood.

Naturally, having a baby and going through pregnancy will change our bodies but it's how we choose to treat that new body that really counts.

One woman who's learning to embrace her post-baby transformation, with all its quirks, is mummy blogger and all round legend, Mel Watts.

Four days after her caesarean she bravely captured the reality of giving birth, sharing an up close image of her baby belly.

She captioned the image: "Top photo 30 weeks pregnant bottom photo 4 days post caesarean section. Wow. Honestly it's no castle or bloody piece of art. Sure it's filled with stretch marks and dimples. But this body, this one I own gave me another life. Another small human to love and hold. It held onto him for 9 months and sheltered him, protected him and prepared him for the day he was born.

"So many times I've doubted my body, so many times I've pinched and pulled at sections that I didn't like. In reality this body has done everything I'd ever want it to do. Sure it's not magazine or swimsuit worthy to some. But to me and my husband, it's the place that everything we love most started. And that's all that counts right?!

"We feel as though we need to follow society's stigma on what we should look like when in fact we should do what we feel works for us. No body has the same body. And every body has their own body. Enjoy it."

📸 Top photo 30 weeks pregnant Bottom photo 4 days post Caesarean section. Wow. Honestly it's no castle or bloody piece of art. Sure it's filled with stretch marks and dimples. But this body, this one the one I own gave me another life. Another small human to love and to hold. It held onto him for 9 months and sheltered him, protected him and prepared him for the day he was born. So many times I've doubted my body, so many times I've pinched and pulled at sections that I didn't like. In reality this body has done everything I'd ever want it to do. Sure it's not magazine or swimsuit worthy to some. But to me and my husband, it's the place that grew our babies. It's the place that everything we love most started. And that's all that counts right?! We feel as though we need to follow society's stigma on what we should look like when in fact we should just do what we feel works for us. No body has the same body And every body has their own body. Enjoy it.

A post shared by M E L W A T T S - MUMMA LIFE (@themodernmumma) on Jun 9, 2017 at 3:12am PDT

Most of the comments were encouraging, praising Mel for her positivity and thanking her for encouraging them to embrace their bodies. But sadly there were a small handful that branded her 'revolting'. Despite defending the negative comments as 'totally ok' she clapped back in yet another kickass body confidence post.

Hey guys! Me again. So after yesterday's post I've had a few comments, shares etc which have been great . As reaching so many people and connecting with them is important to me, hence why I started to a blog - so someone had someone to relate to. It's been a whirlwind few days since the birth of our Sonny and I took a few moments last night to write down my feelings towards my post Caesarean section at Day 4. The photo was unflattering, with a dressing intact. If you zoomed you may of seen some regrow then and the little dignity I had left. Whatever floats your boat. As the shares reached new people the comments grew wider and further. Some referring to it as a real post baby body, some referring to it as revolting. Which is totally okay. However, I think you should be aware that I didn't use the word "real" in any of my post. I think all women's bodies are real. Some work hard for theirs and some *cough cough* don't 🙋🏻 Over time I've watched women be put down and slammed mostly by other women for how someone looks. Either being too fit, too fat, too sluggish and too pretty. I watched @reviejane get slashed for how she looked pregnant, I read @laurenbrant get trampled on for how she looked after her birth. The difference between us, both of these women work hard for how they look. I've watched Revie going to the gym whilst I'm on a 6 pack of doughnuts. Just because we all look different doesn't mean none of us aren't real or unrealistic. Some women bounce back, some don't. Some women train hard, some don't. And just because you feel like you don't fit in one of these categories doesn't make you any less real than myself, Lauren or Revie. We're all real. We're all women who have birthed little humans and we're all just trying to do the best we can. Just like the other millions of women in the world. Instead of fighting each other and writing nasty things about people we don't know how about we just embrace each other? There is so much bad in this world at the moment that as soon as we stop thinking it's acceptable behaviour to bring other women down it's never going to get better. #bethechange

A post shared by M E L W A T T S - MUMMA LIFE (@themodernmumma) on Jun 10, 2017 at 3:29am PDT

So ladies, whether you're celebrating your 'mum bod' with a reclaimed six pack or just a six pack of doughnuts, how about we do as Mel says and just embrace each other!

You can find Mel blogging at The Modern Mumma .

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