When I started writing this post I had no idea what the title was going to be. There are so many options to express, in just a few words, what this post is about. Some of the titles I thought of were ‘pre-pregnancy vs pregnancy weight’, ‘why are we so hard on ourselves’ and ‘scale weight is just a number’ but I finally settled on ‘our bodies should be honoured’. I hope it’s done enough to express, in just a few short words, what I am trying to say.

Scale weight should not define us

We all know that when we visit the gynae when we are pregnant, they weigh us. It’s to check we aren’t gaining or dropping weight drastically which could be an indication of something else. When I started this pregnancy I was 10kgs heavier than when I’d fallen pregnant with Tristan. You can read about my (constant) weight battle here. That means I started this pregnancy around 88kgs! I’m 1,75m tall. Most would look at me and probably think I wasn’t hugely overweight but I wanted to lose some weight but it just didn’t happen. At my latest scan my gynae had expected me to weigh around 97kgs, but I weighed 94,5kgs. That means in 36 weeks I’ve “gained” around 6kgs.

Placenta, amniotic fluid, etc

If we look at averages, a baby weighs around 3,3kgs at birth, the placenta weighs around 0,7kgs and the amniotic fluid around 0,8kgs which means, just carrying a baby will increase our scale weight by around 4,8kgs.
The other weight comes from changes in our bodies such as the uterus muscle grows, blood volume increases, extra natural fluid in the body, breast size increases and extra fat storage for energy for breastfeeding. All these combined add around 7,7kgs.
So that means, on average, our scale weight will increase around 12,5kgs in our 40-odd weeks of pregnancy. 
Facts taken from www.babycentre.co.uk

Extend the same kindness to yourself as you do to others. You deserve it

For some reason, not entirely sure why, but I still get on the scale every week at home, even while I’m pregnant. But you know what the difference is between now and when I’m not pregnant? Right now, my weight does not scare me, or define me or upset me. It is what it is and I’m totally, 100% happy about it. My body is growing a human; that’s remarkable!

When baby is born I am going to lose a good couple of kg’s just by birthing him and hopefully I will lose the rest and be back at my pre-baby weight easily with the help of breastfeeding. I want to get back to exercising when it’s safe for me to start moving my body; this is so important to my mental wellbeing as much as my health. BUT, I really hope that I can be as kind to myself then as I am now. By having a baby & breastfeeding, our bodies go through such dramatic changes that we need to allow them the time to settle again after we’ve come through it all. If it takes us 40-odd weeks to grow a human and for our bodies to go through such dramatic changes, why should we not allow it at least the same amount of time (if not longer as we find our new normal groove) to get back there.

What’s the moral of my story?

Be kind to yourself. Women’s bodies are amazing and we should honour them!

Much love xxx