Media pressure even on mums to be.

Louise Redknapp is due to have her baby in three weeks time and a photo shoot 6 weeks following, for Triumph lingerie. She films her final weeks of pregnancy and the trials of losing the baby weight in preparation. The documentary aired on ITV on 26th March, Louise discovers the truth about super skinny pregnancies.

The programme outlines the length to which stars will go to, to have a skinny pregnancy and loose weight once the baby has come. Nicole Kidman lost all her baby weight in just 2 weeks following the birth. Instead of celebrating being a mother, there is now pressure on women to return to their previously “perfect” bodies.

The magazines and the press seem to be the route of all problems with coverage about weight splashed around expressing how much celebrities have put on or lost, there is no happy medium and now they are targeting mothers to be. This new trend of super skinny pregnancies has started to affect the public and women are going to extreme measures to achieve the “perfect” image.

The media’s obsession with weight, Louise explains, makes her question herself and body image which ultimately makes her want to go to extreme measures to achieve her weight loss goals.

Louise speaks with the editor of Now, who wrote the article “Louise goes into hiding” because she is “massive”. I believe the word is pregnant. Louise has been made to feel guilty about eating healthy and properly for her unborn baby, what does this say about our media led culture? The editor of Now magazine, Abigail Blackburn, is around a size 14-16, the average size of a woman in Britain, and yet she feels she can describe pregnant models as huge for the excuse to ‘get readership and make her readers feel better about themselves.’ Has she ever considered that celebrities are human too and how these headlines affect normal women?

Mel C joins Louise to describe her own issues with food and the eating disorder that she suffered with when she was in the Spice Girls. Mel also feels the media are the reason women feel ashamed of their pregnant bodies rather than liberated. Now Mel is pregnant and recovered from her eating disorder she no longer worries of food and instead describes her joy of embracing motherhood. She explains this is an incredible experience to which all women should feel, not that pregnancy is a burden for body image.

Louise meets mothers during the documentary to discover the motives behind the extreme measures these women are taking at the risk of their child. The media have formulated a new term related to the women that suffer with eating disorders during pregnancy; ‘Pregorexia’. This is in no way terminology to use lightly, 1 in 20 women suffer from it in the UK; Louise meets a woman who has put on only 8 pounds and due to give birth in two weeks time. Her identity guised, she explains her turmoil with food; “sometimes I only eat one apple in two days.” Adam Carey, a nutritionist that first met Louise when she documented her attempt to be a size zero, described the implications on the unborn baby when a mother does not eat correctly; the baby is at risk of poor development, it could develop ventilation problems and is even at the risk of dying in the early part of their life or being still born.

The effects of extreme dieting during pregnancy are overwhelming, so why do women feel the need to do so?

Kimberly, a 25 year old woman with a 5 week old baby describes the pressure she feels already to loose her baby weight. She regularly reads celebrity magazines and felt she too should look like she did before she had her baby. She started taking slimming tablets 3 weeks after giving birth to her baby.

Louise travels to California to meet another mum of 29, she has lost her baby weight and is now a UK size 10 but she still feels the need to undergo major surgery to be happy. She explains wanting to achieve the body she had before her two children, during her second pregnancy she followed the celebrity stars pregnancies and, as she describes “wanted to look like them”, she compared herself and now wants to have the “mummy makeover” which includes a tummy tuck, breast enhancement and liposuction, all for $20,000.

There seems to be no realism about pregnancy and really embracing motherhood for what it is; to bring another life into this world.

An American woman has put this to right by creating her own website for women around the world to show off their bodies for what they are; being a mother. The shape of a Mother celebrates motherhood and shows the images of real mothers that we no longer see in day to day life. The site helps women to accept their bodies.

The media provide us with a skewed perspective of something which is natural to a woman, this perspective shouldn’t be embraced. We should instead all accept motherhood changes our bodies for the reason of bringing another life into the world.