Bodily connections and our changing physical selves
I was fortunate to be in contact with the Birth Trauma Association to speak to someone affected by postpartum PTSD – who is featured in Chapter 2 of my book. In advance of their awareness week – themed connections, here is a longer version of a post I wrote for their social channels, about connections to our body.
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The body we are born with is the only one we will ever have. Women’s bodies though are rarely truly their own – from a young age woman are objectified and made to feel that their body is related to their worth.
There are messages aplenty about all aspects of what we should and shouldn’t do. Take the recent recommendation that women of “childbearing age” should not drink alcohol at all, how we should look during and after pregnancy, and even how we should give birth, disregarding our own autonomy in the process.
When women become pregnant this kind of objectification intensifies, so much so that sociologists have suggested that women become “public property” when pregnant. There are expectations and comments about the size of their bump for instance. These are innocently met but are steeped in subtle judgement. “You must be due soon,” might be asked of someone seven months pregnant, with the implication that they are the size of a full-term pregnancy. At the other end of the scale, comments such as: “Your bump is so neat” or: “You’re barely showing at all”, exposes the way that pregnant bodies that are not too large, are socially celebrated.
At the same time, we are sold the idea that women are all powerful life givers, that giving birth vaginally is “natural”. I can still parrot the advice from the hypnobirthing tapes I listened to as I drifted off to sleep, regularly re-iterating that: “Your body knows what to do, just let it happen,” (a slightly misleading statement when we know medical intervention is extremely common). In my case I was so convinced that my mental preparation meant my body would certainly “know what to do” and so the belated discovery, mid contractions, that my baby was breech (head up instead of down) came as a bit of a shock – for more on this, check out my book.
The types of comments and judgements around pregnancy and childbirth do have real implications for mental health. How a mother feels about her body, both during pregnancy and after, can play a role in the subsequent bond she feels with her baby. In many ways, we are completely changed after birth – our bodies may be physically “leaky”, with milk and lochia (an actual month of bleeding after childbirth), not to mention the physical recovery from childbirth. A societal expectation to ‘bounce back’ is especially damaging.
Shortly after birth, it is impressed upon us that our body is made for breastfeeding. After a traumatic birth with countless interventions, I felt fortunate that breastfeeding came easily to me, but it was not because of anything that I specifically did. Still, I was congratulated by so many medical professionals, with approving glances, as if I had conformed exactly to what a new mother should do. This is obviously unhelpful for the countless women who are not able to breastfeed, another thing mothers are made to feel guilty about. Our bodies remain open to public scrutiny in a way that leaves the body feeling functional or for some women, as if they are “transgressing” a socially constructed ideal. In one review, a woman stated: “It was as if suddenly the whole world had access to my body.”
It’s clear that birth and the postpartum experience are messy, unpredictable, painful and strange. We want to feel deeply connected to our baby – and a load of beneficial hormones do give us a guiding hand – but the cost can be that we feel less connected to our physical selves. It’s therefore no wonder that postpartum mental health conditions are being diagnosed with greater frequency, though many still remain overlooked.
At the same time a first baby is born, so too is a new mother, which has been called the “matrescence” – the birth of a mother. To feel connected to motherhood we need to understand that in reality, our body may not be our own for a while. It is constantly serving a new human, physically and emotionally. Breasts become functional rather than sexual, but still in hushed voices, soon after childbirth women routinely ask each other if they have returned to “intimacy” yet – and in a much-needed GP check-up, women are reminded about contraception at about six weeks postpartum in the UK. Of course, physical intimacy is an important part of a relationship, but if a woman feels less connected to herself and her body, intimacy may take some time to return.
With awareness, the discomfort these issues bring to the surface can be mitigated earlier. If we are given more knowledge about the types of interventions that might occur, about how our body might feel after birth, and how normal this can be, we might have less perfectionistic expectations of ourselves and our bodies afterwards.
I started this post with the somewhat obvious statement about the legacy of our own body – it’s the only one we will ever have. It might be obvious but in the context of motherhood it’s worth remembering what a momentous body it really is, in its messy, unpredictable and beautiful glory. Only by remembering this will we be able to feel better connected to it.
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My new book The Motherhood Complex is now available on Hive, Waterstones, Foyles or Amazon and all other stores. It’s also available on e-book and audiobook. Bought it? I would love to know what you think, or even better, leave me an Amazon review (you can do this regardless of where it was bought)- this really helps first time authors like me.
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