Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: Pregnant Stomach

Question:
It's been about 16 months since I delivered my baby - BUT, my stomach still looks as if i had delivered just yesterday! (not that bad - but pretty bad :-( ).My stomach shrank almost all the way but my skin shrank very little. So it looks real wrinkled and baggy and awful :-( :-( I was wondering if any of you had or are having a similar problem???

Answer:
You know, becoming a mother was really hard on my sex life. Really, really hard. All the usual reasons -- exhaustion, and hormone changes, and being touched-out from caring for a baby who needed very little sleep and lots of carrying. And the shocking change of having NO time at all to myself, when i had been used to spending several hours alone every day. And I felt so ugly; everything was stretched out and sagging; I couldn't believe that anyone could ever look at my body with loverly eyes again. If my husband had told me even once that my body looked awful, I don't know that my libido would ever have recovered. He *said* that!?! And you let him live? Wow. And I suppose he's still as handsome as he was the day you met him? I've had two children and I weigh more now than I ever have and when I ask my husband if he thinks I'm attractive his answer is always that he loves me no matter how I look (smart man since he has a severe case of d*&k-do [will elaborate in one-on-one if anyone wants to know]). If *you* are worried about over-fleshiness the best things to do are kegals (yes kegals), crunches, and pelvic lifts. Not to mention visualizing yourself the way you want to be. I don't know how long, or if you still, breastfeed - but, if so, FWIW, my wife, who is incredibly athletic, and started running ASAP after delivery, just could not seem to lose any weight until after she had stopped breastfeeding. I just wanted to recommend Elizabeth Noble's book _Essential Exercises for the Childbearing Year_. Yes, my stomach still bears a resemblance to the face of the moon (craters and canals and so forth), but my muscle tone is good and my stomach doesn't pooch out. Looks are certainly not the most important thing in the world, but pelvic and abdominal muscle tone are very important for the health of the back and internal organs. There are 3 separate issues here: muscle tone, skin tone, and actual extra weight...it's hard for me to tell which Era is referring to (except that it doesn't sound like it's extra weight). Holly's advice will help with muscle tone, except in some cases where the muscles have been so far overstretched that they can't regain their original tone (I've heard of this with some women who've had twins, for example). _Skin_ tone is different, though--it can pretty easily get stretched passed elasticity, and no amount of exercise will get it back to good tone. In my own case, I have skin below my navel that was over-stretched; it's definately a different texture than the rest of my body but doesn't look at all baggy (that is, when I lost the baby weight & got myself into shape, it went back to being flat). If the problem really is having enough overstretched skin to leave you with a 'pooch', I think the only real solution may be surgery, which is more extreme that most people want to deal with.