New moms who are tired of being force-fed images of celebrities who bounce back into pre-baby shape weeks after giving birth are using the hashtag #TakeBackPostpartum to show off their real, beautiful post-baby bodies and lives.
The online body acceptance movement was started by Texas mom and founder of Birth Without Fear, January Harshe. She says she became exasperated by advertisers touting the #postpartum hashtag to sell stretch mark creams and weight loss foods. So, in a blogpost she mobilized other moms by asking them to "take back" the postpartum tag by sharing pictures of what postpartum life means to them—and the feedback has been extraordinarily moving.
"I said ladies if you want to make a change, we have to do it ourselves," the mother of six told Today. "There was a big response. Women said, 'Let's show what this is like'….What I've learned is that every woman struggles one way or another. Every woman struggles differently. I'm trying to show all the variations of normal for postpartum and motherhood."
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