Professional Athlete Bares Her ‘Hot Mess Tummy’ To Show Real Effect Of Pregnancy

We love to see a bit of mum-bod pride shaking up the internet.

And playing directly against the constant tsunami of pressure to ‘get your body back’ within weeks of birth. As if a mum’s job wasn’t already hard enough.

Anyway.

This week we’ve been getting more than our share of happy mummy body goodness from Stephanie Rothstein Bruce, a professional athlete who has been sharing some hardcore truth about the effects of pregnancy on the body. Stephanie is a long-distance runner who is at this very moment attempting to qualify for the Olympics. She wants to represent America in the 10,000 metre race, and that’s no easy task.

But the 32-year-old also tackles the role of mum to her two children, aged 21 months and 6 months, and holds no punches as to the way that her pregnancies have changed her body. On her Instagram page, Stephanie regularly shares updates as to her intense training and fitness regime, as well as insights into her postpartum tummy.

Stephanie’s Journey

As far as professional athletes, and certainly professional runners go, Stephanie is pretty unusual. Instead of waiting until she had achieved her Olympic dream before having children, she chose to take a break from training to start her family. This means she is fighting to qualify for the next Olympics, but the woman is clearly adept at overcoming obstacles in there life.

After dealing with years of injuries and unexplained illnesses, Stephanie was finally diagnosed with Coeliac disease in 2010. For some that would have been the end of her running career, but not Stephanie. Instead she used the diagnosis as a motivation to get better, to run faster, and to succeed. It was around this time that she launched her blog, and later her Instagram page. Originally, the Instagram account was to help friends and family keep track of her, but it has since taken off.

The Real Postpartum Belly

Stephanie’s followers, which have grown steadily to over 25,000 as many come to follow her journey, have applauded the athlete’s open and honest take on reclaiming her body after pregnancy. One popular Instagram post on the matter came just a few days after her son was born, showing the effect that Diastasis Recti, or Abdominal Separation, had on her body.

“What a difference 8 days makes.” she captioned the image.

“Amazing how babies fit in our bellies. The contrast here is to show stomachs don’t shrink right away post delivery and you have that awkward “oh how far along are you?” Oh I am postpartum actually. #keepitreal ladies and flaunt that PP belly!”

Many of her followers found her view on pregnancy and postpartum living to be incredibly refreshing, particularly in our media saturated world where celebrity mums appear looking incredible thin just days after giving birth.

Stephanie is very clear that, while her body is changed, she still celebrates the wonderful strength that she has, and is ready for the journey forward.

“When I look down I see stretch marks that are here to stay, ab muscles that need continued strengthening, legs that are powerful, and feet that are ready to fly!” she wrote on Instagram.

She’s also said how proud she is of her post-pregnancy body, saying she sees no reason to hide something that is totally natural and the reality for many mums. These views, and her public platform, has seen her hailed as a great role model for pregnant and postpartum mums. She hopes that the pictures she posts will help other women to show off their post-baby bodies, instead of being embarrassed by the fact that they don’t fit into some kind of ‘norm’ that doesn’t really exist.

This Is How It Should Be

We want to be clear when we say that if pregnant and postpartum mums want to look at any post-pregnancy body today, it should be Stephanie Rothstein Bruce’s. In fact, let’s just make it a rule that the only bodies that mums should be able to see and compare themselves to are normal bodies, not celebrity bodies that have been tucked, primped and photoshopped before publication.

Pregnancy is hard on the body. It’s a battle, a marathon and an effort unlike anything else. Nobody should be surprised that it leaves a mark long after it’s over. These are battle scars that tell the world that you have grown a life. That is something worth celebrating, not something worth hiding.

After you give birth, all women deal with their own unique issues, but the experience is still one that is shared. Just look at Stephanie. The woman is fitter than most of us will be in our lifetime, but she’s still struggling with muscle separation, saggy skin, muscle control and more.

We need to stop thinking about the celebrity post-baby body as normal. There’s nothing normal about it, and the sooner we figure that out, the sooner mums will be able to get on with the real job of mothering, instead of the useless task of worrying about what other people think.