Women with a higher-than-average BMI are invisible in popular depictions of motherhood. They shouldn’t be, argues Rose Stokes. Here, the writer shares her experience of pregnancy
‘It’s going to be difficult to get a good picture due to the size of your tummy,’ the sonographer tells me. It’s the morning of the 12-week scan for my first child – and the moment I’ve been dreading. The shame washes over me as I pull down my skirt to give her access to my stomach. She says nothing to alleviate my embarrassment, but after a pause that feels eternal, she utters the words my partner and I have been waiting for. ‘There’s the heartbeat, strong and healthy.’ An overwhelming sense of relief anaesthetises any embarrassment about my body – for now.
Parts of this story will feel familiar to anyone who’s been pregnant with a much-wanted child. But while the anxiety and the sense of time moving like treacle are almost universal among expectant mothers, I suspect the shame is reserved for those of us carrying a child in a bigger-than-average body. Data on BMI in pregnancy is hard to come by, but one study – looking at women who gave birth in England, Wales and Scotland between April 2015 and March 2017 – estimated that 21.8% had a BMI of 30 or above; that a further 16.9% didn’t have their BMI taken suggests the figure could be higher still. And yet, healthy, plus-size women are completely absent from popular depictions of motherhood.
A quick Google of the phrase ‘plus-size’ and ‘motherhood’ reveals page after page of alarmist articles alongside tips for losing my ‘baby body’; a scroll through the maternity offerings of highstreet brands reveals that the idea that larger-bodied women may also need clothes to wear during pregnancy has yet to register.
That bigger-bodied mothersto-be are poorly represented adds another layer of anxiety to a life stage that’s already loaded with the stuff. I made peace with my stretch marks, along with the need to buy bigger clothes, in my late teens. Now I’m in my thirties, and a size 18 to 20, it barely registers. But while the jubilation I felt reading ‘pregnant’ on the Clearblue stick last autumn was a high like no other, starting my pregnancy in a body that many expect to finish theirs in has been isolating. And while I’m thrilled to be writing to you from the final month of my healthy pregnancy, it’s a journey that’s left me feeling a lot like an outsider. I want to know why plussize pregnancy is still treated as a taboo, both by medical practitioners and society; how the experience of creating life differs for those in a bigger body; and how plussize mothers-to-be can look after themselves at a time when they’re ofte
