Brave New Mums Bare All in Powerful Semi-Nude, Post-Baby Photos

A GROUP of new mums have posed with their newborn babies just six weeks after child birth to celebrate their postpartum figures.
The photos feature in Natalie’s new picture series called After the Baby is Born as part of The Honest Body project.
“Society puts so much pressure on women to 'bounce back' after giving birth and I want to help break that cycle,” Natalie wrote on her website.

“These women are baring their hearts and souls to help show the variations of bodies after giving birth.”

Each photo contains a quote from the women telling of how they’ve adjusted to having a newborn and a new body.
One woman spoke of her horror when she caught a glimpse of the “purple, jagged stretch marks” on her stomach, which she didn’t have after her first pregnancy.

“I called my husband in to show him. “Look at these stretch marks," I said. "Cool!" he said.

“And he genuinely meant it as he ran his finger across them. "I used to have amazing, tight abs... do you remember?" I asked him, realizing that they would never look like I remembered.

Without hesitation, he replied "Yes, but we didn’t have two amazing sons back then.”.....aww cute, if only every husband could respond like this.       

                   

Another mum talked about how she no longer feels pressure to “bounce back” like she did after her previous two pregnancies.

“There’s something really beautiful about the way my newborn’s tiny body molds into my soft, squishy postpartum belly,” she explained.

One mum found that being a “plus-sized pregnant woman was very challenging in every aspect”.

“I don’t want to be skinny. I just want to be healthy for me, my family, and my son, but it is hard,” she said.

“It’s hard to feel beautiful with all of the tiger stripes across my body and all the extra weight I’ve gained.”

While many mums talked about the difficulties of balancing motherhood with all the other aspects of their lives.

“The newborn hasn’t been the overwhelming part - it’s everything else!” one mum noted.

“Newborns just need to be snuggled and nursed all the time, which is honestly a joy, but it makes doing anything else - taking care of her older siblings, keeping the house from descending into chaos, spending time with my husband - a challenge.”

One mum suffered emotional pain and trauma after she was induced at 41 weeks and was forced to go into labour without medication.

After nearly 13 long hours in labour, she had to have a caesarean section.

“Going through all of that and then not even getting to be the first one to hold or see my baby boy absolutely crushed me at my core,” she said.

“I haven’t had anywhere near the same feelings or sadness with the arrival of my newest son, and I attribute a lot of that to having much more of a say in what my birth experience was like this time as well as an amazing therapist I continue to see weekly and have been going to for nearly two years now.”

Another mum confessed that she spent her whole pregnancy worried about how her toddler would react to having a little sibling, only to find out that she loves being a big siste.

"She even tries to do diaper changes on all her stuffed animals and breastfeed them," she explains.