Strollerderby : stretch marks

What You Look Like After Triplets

JeanneSager — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:01:00 GMT

This mom is BRAVE. And totally awesome.

A mom allowed herself to be photographed throughout the weeks of her pregnancy with triplets. Then she jumped forward to three months after delivery and struck the same pose - shirt pulled up to just below the boobs and everything hanging out.

Wow. The stretch marks are scary, but honestly, they're what to be expected for normal women who get stretchmarks (because, I'm sorry, but I have some intense loathing going on for you "Oh, I didn't get a mark" women - I fart in your general direction) and one carrying three babies at that. But look at that tummy tone! Go mama!

I love these kinds of pictures, honestly, because they remind me that my tummy will never be toned again . . . and that's OK. I don't need to look like Angelina, and my husband doesn't think I need to look like Angelina.

Because the picture at the very end of the long series of triplet pics says it all - it's the three "sweet peas" (her words) she got out of it all. Yeah, totally worth it.

Click here to see the entire series.

Image: ShapeofaMother

The Shape of a Mother: The Real Us In All Our Unglorious Glory

JeanneSager — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:32:00 GMT

The mom flap (so dubbed by Crabmommy) gets plenty of hate press in the standard parenting mags. But let's face it - most of us are still hanging onto the flap in all its hideous ungloriousness. Dads - your wives/girlfriends/baby mama's have got a little bit of flubber in the middle that your little bouncing bean left behind. It's the shape of a mother.

I've been hiding the effects of my daughter from the world since she came out. The only ones who've seen my stomach since I left the maternity ward are my OB/GYN and my husband. No amount of crunches or starvation diets can make the skin once again stretch cleanly across the belly - even one that's got a little too much fat underneath. Like my daughter's hairbands, it's been stretched to the point of no return. Three years of sucking it in and layering it up.

When I found the site created by a California mother and dedicated to all of us out here with sagging skin and pooching bellies, I was cowed. It's the shape of a mother in all it's unglorious glory. It's saggy and stretchy and poochy and paunchy. It's strained from too many hours spent bending over a pile of Tonka trucks and too much toting a monsterous carseat carrier. It's tired from too many late nights making lunches and too many early morning feedings.

There are curvy behinds and killer scars. There are big baby bellies and tiny postpartum waists. Some of them are sort of scary (do not share with any of the child-free by choice crowd!). Some of them make me want to switch places.

I won't be one of them - I'm still in hiding. But there are women out there who have the guts to bare their bellies and share the shape of a mother. Will you be one of them?

Image: The Shape of a Mother

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What Bristol Palin Can Expect, After Baby Algebra

JeanneSager — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:56:00 GMT

Even a knee-jerk liberal mom like me can feel bad for Bristol Palin. Not because she’s facing the end of childhood before she’s even allowed to vote (or drink for that matter – how will she get through parenthood?). And not because her mom has thrown her to the ~~wolves~~ media by signing on to a national campaign for vice president during her teenage pregnancy. That's just the icing.

Here's the cake: By the time the nation’s possible Second Grandkid comes screaming into the world, Mrs. Levi Johnston (nee Palin) will be looking for sympathy for saggy boobs and stretch marks. And where's she going to find it? Grandma-to-be has the type of 44-year-old body that can hide a seven-month pregnancy, and we don't mean the type where you eye the belly and go "hmmm, do I risk getting smacked if I ask her when she's due?"

Even the moms deeply entrenched in Republican rhetoric are building voodoo dolls with a Sarah Palin head. Trust me. No mom has a body like that and makes friends on the playground. She’s the mom you shake hands with after you change a diaper – before you wash your hands. And I’m just another mommy. I’m not her hormonal teenage daughter.
Sorry Bristol, the books might say “nine months on and nine months off,” but you might want to hire a personal trainer before you pose for the next set of family portraits. That’s if you can find time for those "normal" mom moments.

Because she's going to come home from the hospital after an exhausting labor and delivery, and all she will want to do is sink down in the tub for a hot bath while that hunky hockey hubby takes care of the baby for 5 blessed minutes.
But wait, what's that knocking?

“Up and at ‘em, the early bird catches the moose. I was back to work in three days while your father took care of the baby, let's go babe."

So let's all take a moment to feel bad for Bristol Palin. . . . Oh, man, that knee is jerking again.

Image: Celebrity-Gossip

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Stretch Marks Are the Scourge of Western Civilization

Adrienne Martini — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Eight months into my first pregnancy, I marveled at the fact that I didn't have any stretch marks. What I didn't know is that they were all lurking under that big belly full of baby, in the spots that I couldn't see and that the spouse was too polite to point out. Of all of the many (many) indignities of pregnancy, this is the one that really chaps my behind, mostly because there isn't a darn thing you can do about them. Or is there?

The New York Times takes on stretch marks in their Style section, which seems to be the home of all of the news that isn't actually news to anyone with a pulse. My last favorite Style story was about kids destroying your interior design. To which we all say: Duh.

Still, as it turns out, various creams and potions that promise to reduce stretch marks might work, unless they don't. The only sure cure is to have laser treatments or use Retin-A, which is more than I'm willing to go, given that I don't make my living modeling bathing suits or underpants.

You, however, may feel differently. Or be an underpant model.

Photo credit: www.aafp.org

Bad Advice in the News? Is Using Retin-A For Stretch Marks Risky During Pregnancy?

Kelly Mills — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:31:00 GMT

I saw this article from Fox News on preventing stretch marks, and paused for a second. Tip number one is, "Using Retin A Cream (vitamin A) at the inception of pregnancy, a weight-building program or a growth spurt is essential to keep the skin hydrated and moisturized." Now, I sort of remembered that Retin-A was not supposed to be used during pregnancy because of a risk of birth defects. So I went to the internet and poked around for reliable information. (Here's my love-hate with the internet. I adore having easy access to so much information, but sometimes you find everyone quoting some study and it turns out it was done on stuffed animals by a guy named Hal in his basement.)

So did the report just advocate pregnant women use something that causes birth defects? Accutane, also in the retinoid family, is absolutely linked to birth defects, but when you use topical Retin-A, only 10 percent passes into the bloodstream. Most of what I found says Retin-A is not associated with a higher risk of birth defects, though many people seem to still advise against using it in pregnancy--and actually Fox News advised against it last year. I did find this from a 2004 fact sheet from the Organization of Teratology Information Specialists: "There have been four reports of babies born with birth defects after their mothers used tretinoin during pregnancy. Usually, a few reports do not cause health professionals to worry, but the birth defects reported in these four cases are like the defects seen in babies whose mothers took isotretinoin during pregnancy." It goes on to say this is a very low risk, but that it might be a good idea not to use it. I also found this, which has scariness but in animal studies. So I guess you have to decide if your stretch marks are worth the risk, and if you consider this to even be a risk.

If anyone has seen any reliable studies on this, send 'em along!

Celebrity Versus Real PostPartum Bodies

Kelly Mills — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 16:43:00 GMT

Getting sick of seeing pictures of celebrities who are already slim one month after giving birth? So was Bonnie Crowder. She started a website, Shape of a Mother, and posted photos of her stretch marks. Soon she was getting tons of photos and essays from other moms, even (gasp) naked ones. "'Instead of seeing them as just stretch marks and an ugly scar, now you can see them as the mark that your body did something amazing,' said Crowder." Many of the women share their feelings about their bodies after during and pregnancy, and to my knowledge not one used the celeb weight-loss method of ~~plastic surgery and a wet nurse~~ a crash diet and five-hour daily sessions with a personal trainer.

The idea is pretty cool, since we get enough pressure to be bikini-ready, and perhaps aren't prepared for the "when are you due?" questions you get when you go out sans baby two weeks after delivery. I know for some of us, the notion that breastfeeding makes all that weight fall right off is just crap. The only thing breastfeeding made fall was my boobs. Most of the photos on the site are of bellies, but naturally I immediately clicked on "vaginal trauma". No photos there, and I'm sort of relieved. If yet-to-breed women saw pictures of the hoo hoo one month post-birth, it could spell the end of the species.