EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
PREPARING FOR HER FIRST MOTHER’S DAY AS A MUM
TELLS US HOW HER LIFE HAS CHANGED STRICTLY FOR THE BETTER SINCE THE ARRIVAL OF HER BABY GIRL
She is used to transforming herself on the dancefloor, but when Oti Mabuse became a mother, she wasn’t prepared for how much the experience would change her – for the best.
Speaking exclusively to hello! the former Strictly Come Dancing star says welcoming her baby girl with husband Marius Iepure has turned her into someone completely different.
“Me as a mum is more confident, more self-assured,” she says. “I’m tired, but everything I do is for a purpose and I enjoy this new me. The new normal is exhausting, but so rewarding.
“It’s a new world and everything has changed. Everything. I still don’t feel like myself because I am embracing this new me. I don’t want to feel like my old self.”
NO TIME FOR CRITICS
And this newfound confidence means she doesn’t care any more if she gets criticised on social media.
“I used to have conversations about body confidence and how it used to make me feel and now I’m like, our bodies, as women, are creating life and creating food. Anything beyond that really doesn’t matter, especially as a new mum in the public eye.”
Her bond with her precious daughter – whose name she chooses to keep private – is “amazing”, she says, adding the baby is “healthy, she’s happy. She’s a very calm, gorgeous angel! We enjoy spending a lot of time with her.”
In February, the 33-year-old star opened up about the traumatic birth, which took place last autumn, when her daughter arrived six weeks prematurely and then spent six weeks in hospital being treated for infections as a result of Oti developing sepsis.
Despite this, she says, the birth itself was “so uplifting”, adding: “The midwives were so incredible at their jobs. I felt so good under their care. I was really nervous about the labour, but you know when you overcome something you’re really scared of? I felt powerful after.”
She’s now back judging on Dancing on Ice, , juggling her life as a working mother with the help of MAM’s new wearable breastfeeding
