Monthly Archives: October 2007

A recent article in The New York Times called Is the ‘Mom Job’ Really Necessary? highlights the trend of women having plastic surgery after the birth of a child in order to erase the effects of pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. Some plastic surgeons have been offering new package deals for mothers called “Mommy Makeovers” as “a cure for the ravages of motherhood”. These surgeries include a breast lift that may include implants, a tummy tuck, and liposuction and can cost between $10,000 and $30,000.

In one quote from the article, a plastic surgeon named Dr. David A. Stoker bluntly states, ““The severe physical trauma of pregnancy, childbirth and breast-feeding can have profound negative effects that cause women to lose their hourglass figures.” I wonder how many women go into pregnancy and birth with perfect hourglass figures, and how many of these expect to have those figures back once the process is complete. I also wonder how anyone can suggest that breastfeeding is a trauma to the body! The word trauma as defined by dictionary.com means that there is “sudden physical injury, as from violence or accident”. To use such a strong word and associate it with the selfless act of breastfeeding an innocent baby is very unsettling.

It seems that the media’s perfectly airbrushed hourglass image of a woman has settled into our cultures subconscious, and now a normal, biological stage of a woman’s existence is seen as a physical injury to her body. The New York Times article states, “Many women struggle with the impact of aging and pregnancy on their bodies. But the marketing of the ‘mommy makeover’ seeks to pathologize the postpartum body, characterizing pregnancy and childbirth as maladies with disfiguring aftereffects that can be repaired with the help of scalpels and cannulae.”

I think that the body of a mother needs to be normalized in our culture. It should be celebrated, not hidden. The introduction to a wonderful blog called The Shape of a Mother states, “It is my dream, then, to create this website where women of all ages, shapes, sizes and nationalities can share images of their bodies so it will no longer be secret. So we can finally see what women really look like sans airbrushes and plastic surgery. I think it would be nothing short of amazing if a few of our hearts are healed, or if we begin to cherish our new bodies which have done so much for the human race. What if the next generation grows up knowing how normal our bodies are? How truly awesome would that be?”

It would be truly awesome indeed!
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