Peta Murgatroyd gave birth to her first child, Shai, in early January. And now, the Dancing with the Stars pro, who's engaged to fellow DWTS powerhouse Maksim Chmerkovskiy, is giving fans a glimpse at how she looks postpartum in a lovely photo on Instagram.
In the photo, Murgatroyd wears a lacy bra and stretch pants as she poses in a bathroom. “Real life: I took this photo 8 days post-birth,” she captioned the photo. “I left the hospital looking 5 months pregnant. Many people think a woman should shrink right back to her pre-birth weight immediately. That is just not the truth for most.”
Murgatroyd, 30, also said that the female body is “incredible and resilient,” but change takes time. “Now it's time for patience and hard work,” she wrote. “Lots of love to all the new mamas out there on the journey.”
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Murgatroyd is right: Most women don’t have stomachs that shrink back down to their pre-pregnancy sizes immediately after giving birth, women’s health expert Jennifer Wider, M.D., tells SELF. “It’s extremely common” to have a larger midsection postpartum, she says. “In fact, it's much less common for a woman to not have a belly right after pregnancy.”
Lauren Streicher, M.D., an associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, agrees. “Every woman should expect to have a belly after she delivers. It is normal to look five months pregnant after giving birth,” she tells SELF. “It took almost 10 months to accommodate the baby, so it’s not going to spring back in seconds.”
There are a few reasons why this happens. One is that a woman’s uterus is still enlarged after birth, Michael Cackovic, M.D., a maternal-fetal medicine physician at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, tells SELF. Usually, the uterus is located immediately behind the bladder and in front of the rectum, but it expands up to the bottom of the rib cage by the end of pregnancy. Within 24 hours after delivering, the top of a woman's uterus is located near her belly button. After about a week of giving birth, it's dropped halfway between her belly button and pubic bone, and it typically goes back to its non-pregnant size (roughly as large as an orange or grapefruit, depending on whether she's had kids before) by six to eight weeks postpartum. Women often experience contractions like they did during labor as the uterus shrinks, and that can be pretty painful, Streicher says.
A woman’s abdominal wall is also going to be lax postpartum, Cackovic says, especially if she’s given birth before. However, the abdominal wall typically goes back to its normal muscle tone over several weeks, he says.
Weight gain can also be a factor here. Women who gain the recommended amount of weight during pregnancy (25 to 35 pounds is considered normal, according to the Mayo Clinic) don’t have much to lose after the baby is born. But those who gain more are going to have more excess weight everywhere, including on their stomachs, Streicher says, adding that genetics can also play a role in how quickly someone's midsection shrinks after giving birth.
Breastfeeding can help speed up postpartum weight loss, Wider says, as well as exercise (with a doctor’s go-ahead), diet, and a woman’s general activity level, she says.
Even with that in mind, it's crucial for women to understand that this entire process takes time. “Women are so hard on themselves and often feel frustrated by this process, but it occurs, for most people, over several months,” Wider says.
Related:
- Hilaria Baldwin's Instagram Photo Shows What Her Belly Looked Like Right After Having A Baby
- The Weird Way I Knew I Was Pregnant
- Tess Holliday Struggles With Postpartum Body Image, Like Anyone Else
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