h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So I'm pottering around in the kitchen, and I can hear the TV from the living room. It's one of those "documentary" things. This time it's following a model who is pregnant and trying to keep thin. (she has an underwear shoot booked for a few weeks after the birth - is she stupid, or has she done that on purpose as a "make me famous" strategy?)

Anyway - I've just heard her expressing concern over other women. One, she exclaims, is in the 8th month and has put on 8lbs.

Remember - these women are trying not to put on weight.

And then I remembered. With #1 I put on 5kilos. And I was stuffing my face with chickpeas and guacamole (not at the same time) for just about the whole pregnancy. With #2 I put on 8 kilos.

It's neither here nor there to me. My theory is that I'm chubby enough not to have needed to put on stores of fat. But I know people who have actually lost weight (admittedly, they started pretty obese) during pregnancy with no ill effects.

I can't remember what my point was now.

I'm watching this too - can safely say that the 23kg I put on this time (and nearly 40, good god, the first time) means I'm not a super skinny pregnant mum Kind of wish I had been though as I've got this bloody mountain to climb again...

She's already famous BTW.

If she wants to lose weight after the birth, fine. And I think you really don't have to 'eat for two' during pregnancy, just make sure you keep a healthy diet. I think I gained 12 or 13 kg during my first pregnancy, and only nine kg during the second - or something. I ate lot of fruits because that was what I was craving for. I don't recall how much I had gained in the 8th month, but 8lb doesn't sound enough to me.

Hypocrite! "We need to shake women and tell them their body won't be back to normal for 9 months"

I'm going to have to stop watching as now quite depressed...

8lb is about the weight of a reasonable-sized baby, isn't it? I mean - it's not massive, for a baby (all mine were on or within 2oz of 8lb so obviously I think it's the perfect term weight )

So an absolute minimum weight gain by 9mths would be around 8kg, wouldn't it? Healthy baby + placenta + amniotic fluid + fat stores on breasts + fat stores on hips so mum doesn't overbalance.

So I would say 8lb (which I'll call 4kg) by 8mths is nowhere near enough to be healthy, even allowing for vast amounts going on in the last 4 weeks.

I've no idea what I put on. I never thought of it as getting fat. I was just about a size 14 before I started, and I settled at a size 16 when I stopped. So I'm carrying more than I was, almost entirely on my chest and belly. But I think that's how it should be - having babies changes you forever and it's right that my body shows that.

Stoopid thin woman Presumably her brain weighed considerably less than average to start with.

Mol

Good job you haven't read today's Guardian about the French getting back into shape within weeks

I wonder how they do that. Maybe it's in their DNA? My first son exhausted me that much I weighed less than I had started with two weeks after he was born.

And none of these people appear to be breastfeeding either.

Anyhoo... where can I get me one of these mummy makeovers

Of course the kind of people who are more worried about their weight than their health or that of their baby won't breastfeed...

>>is she stupid, or has she done that on purpose as a "make me famous" strategy?)

Neither. It isn't true. IT's TV!!! Even when they don't lie to us, they (ahem) 'bend the truth'. I have a mantra which is useful on these occasions:
'TV is a crack whore: it has its own needs and it doesn't care who it s to fulfil them.'
I've not copyrighted this. Feel free to pass it off as your own.

>>or that of their baby won't breastfeed...

Isn't it terrible that women have been taught to worry about this? Babies breastfeed. It's what they were designed to do (by Charles Darwin). Our first two were born 11 weeks early, and we had the devil's own job persuading the hospital that breastfeeding was possible. (This in the city with the lowest breastfeeding rates in Europe). In theory, it was accepted as A Good Idea. In practice - well...two babies in ICU and one breast pump and steriliser in the whole hospital, as far as possible from there and no support or even recognition whatsoever. We had to kick up such a fuss that we were treated as radical hippy breastfeeding zealots. I remember well the moment when, as they tried to discharge my wife before she'd established feeding I drew myself up to full height in front of the hospital director, and said:
'In the foyer you have a poster for a celebrity event in support of National Breastfeeding Week. The offices of a national newspaper are fifty yards down the street. Do you hear what I'm saying?'

Yes, that's what breasts are for. Any other uses are secondary...

Hmmm. Not *exactly* secondary. They're a significant factor in the manufacture of babies.

I wasn't allowed to be breastfed because I was kept in an incubator for several months (I was also quite premature).

That useless bit of info said- I have nothing else to contribute because I've had no babies, and though I have no good reason for not still being nice and thin, I'm not, at the moment. Working on it, though.

A friend recently had a baby. She eats a bit, but works out a lot, and she was quite thin before. Other than the obvious baby belly, the only thing on her I noticed getting bigger were her boobs. She's still got no ass whatsoever. Even when I was thin, I had one of those.

As a personal aside, 4 years ago I was a skinny 7.5 stones and my sister was an 11.5 stoneish curvy girl! We're fairly short, I'm 5'3" and she is only 5' so the weight used to look bigger on her. We used to laugh about Victoria Beckham saying that she lost weight after birth as a family tendency and put it down to fad diets and personal trainers.

My sister wasn't happy with her weight so did WW, she lost a bit, then got pregnant and ate healthily throughout and lost a lot more. She weighed less on delivery than she had pre-pregnancy, probably about 9.5 stones. Since then the weight dropped off for no reason whatsoever - except for running after a baby. She has then gone on to have no2 and as now with a 3yr old and a 5 month old, she is under 7 stone, size 6 and is looking a tad scrawny. Now this girl can eat and does so frequently - most of it is healthy stuff but no short portions and I have seen her down 2 desserts at a time with no problem on a regular basis!

In that time I myself have put on about 2 stones. I think I need to get pregnant, only I'd probably pile it on!

We don't lose weight in our family, we just re-distribute it!

I wonder if the model realises she may need to have a caesarian. Some years ago a skinny colleague of mine was pregnant - skinny = size 6 in this case. When delivery was due, the baby wouldn't turn. Everything was tried to make it turn. Nothing worked. My colleague tried to persuade the hospital to do a breach delivery, but they refused.

I didn't see the program, so I don't know the model's size, but if she's as skinny as my colleague she may have the same problems. I wonder what a caesarian scar would do for the underwear shoot.

A friend of mine was in an ante-natal class with a woman who was smoking while pregnant because she'd heard that would give her a smaller baby and make it easier.

If only people paid as much attention to their soul as they pay to their body...

She was having a planned caesarian - don't know why. She looked lovely at the shoot, but still very thin. Underwear, unless it is extrememly skimpy, generally covers a section scar if it is a normal transverse cut along the bikini line.

She concluded at the end that the media gives women false expectations about themselves and after meeting some real women not afraid to look like they have had children she thought people would be better off with them as role models...and somehow doesn't see herself doing an underwear shoot 10 weeks after having a baby as part of the problem

I only realised as I went over to switch it off that it was Louise Rednapp - who I've thought (up to now) seemed fairly sensible.

But I'd also think - given the furore it generates - that the companies who book these girls for underwear shoots a few weeks (10 weeks, wasn't it?) after their due dates would just get with the program and stop it.

Although - back in the stone age (when I was still in the Army) one of the young chaps in my unit was married to a part-time model. She won the Miss BAOR* title and we used to see her around the camp. But - she won the title - which was a modelling thing including swimsuit contest - 9 days after giving birth to her first daughter. And I have to say she was a teeny tiny thing - came up to my chin and slender as anything.

*British Army Of the Rhine.