“Some people find that becoming pregnant helps them to come to terms with their body for the first time – they can finally understand that it has a real purpose, and they can develop healthy eating behaviours for the baby’s sake. Others find that the sense of their body being ‘out of control’ gets even stronger, and find it much more difficult to cope.”
White felt the loss of control was in some ways a positive: “It felt like control had been taken over by my body,” she says, “it was like having a holiday from the constant intrusive thoughts. I knew people would expect to see my belly grow, so I didn’t need to hold it in anymore like I would normally.”
Counsellor, psychotherapist and body image specialist Holli Rubin says that it is not only those with an eating disorder who find the physical changes difficult during pregnancy. “It’s a time when women are in full view and are a source of much attention. This impacts every woman differently. Some feel liberated by their changing shape and others feel petrified.”
The average UK woman gains 22-26 lbs during pregnancy; this can be particularly tough for those suffering with an eating disorder. Despite knowing the implications of not maintaining a healthy diet, Rubin says that sometimes “[women] are not able to alter their eating habits and do put their babies at risk by not adequately feeding them and consequently affecting their growth and development.”
However, she says that for some, “having a baby can remove the focus from paying too much attention to controlling weight and what is being eaten and positively redirect attention to the newborn and his/her needs, which is to be fed and nourished, especially in those very early days.” She says that if the mother can focus on bonding with her baby, the hope is she can derive pleasure from that experience and not need to fixate on her own weight.
And then there’s the issue of losing ‘baby weight’ after the birth. For White, it was the post-birth period that caught her off guard. “I had a really difficult time with breastfeeding and I also had post-natal depression (PND) so I over-ate massively to distract myself from the guilt. I was disgusted by my body and because we weren’t very successful with breastfeeding I didn’t lose the weight I’d gained, in fact I kept eating and drinking too much alcohol and kept gaining.”
Rubin says that the pressure to snap back into shape soon after giving birth is, in part, associated with celebrities showing us how quickly they managed to do it. But, she notes, they have full time staff, trainers, chefs, et al. For the average woman, the pressure exists but the goal is less realistic. “Women have enough to adapt to,” she says, “the pressure to lose the baby weight is an added one that they really do not need.”