Picturing Postpartum Body Image: A Photovoice Study

Abstract

A primary concern for pregnant women often centres on whether they will ‘bounce back’ to their pre-pregnancy weight and body shape (Nash, 2012a). This is unsurprising given the current expectation in western cultures that women should regain their pre-pregnancy bodies quickly in line with the dictates of normative femininity. These cultural norms are targeted at women during pregnancy and have emanated from moral panics around maternal ‘obesity’ and the circulation of images of celebrity mothers who have ‘bounced back’ from pregnancy with little evidence of childbearing left on their bodies (Nash, 2012b). Supermodel Heidi Klum is often named as having mastered the art of ‘bouncing back’ after she strutted down the catwalk in lingerie looking slender less than six weeks following the birth of her fourth baby (People, 2009). The cultural expectation to ‘get your body back’ also means that women are expected to be active in reclaiming their pre-pregnancy selves. In doing so, they are ‘celebrated as successful, powerful women—women to be emulated, admired, and envied’ (para 4). The celebration of slender postpartum bodies in popular visual culture has encouraged a postfeminist view that regaining control of the body following childbirth is ‘empowering’ and that it should be a goal for all mothers (Nash, 2012a). As I have written elsewhere, the language of empowerment surrounding postpartum body norms is problematic because it presents women with a ‘third shift’ of work that further entrenches them in feminine body projects (Nash, 2011).