Let’s Talk Body Image During Pregnancy

Pregnancy Has a Way of Bringing Up Every Message We’ve Ever Learned About Bodies

Pregnancy has this uncanny way of pulling every old belief, every comment, every cultural message about bodies right up to the surface.

It’s not because you’re overly sensitive or “too in your head.”

It’s because everything about your identity is shifting at once — your role, your relationships, your routines, and yes… your body.

For many women, this season becomes a mirror.

A mirror reflecting not just who you are now, but everything you were taught to believe about how your body should look, behave, or perform. And when your body is changing rapidly — in ways you can’t control — those old messages can feel louder than ever.

But here’s what I know deep in my bones, both personally and from working with women in pregnancy and postpartum for years:

Comfort is not giving up.

Choosing the softer pants, the bigger size, the comfiest bra you can find — that’s not “letting yourself go.” It’s tending to a body that is working overtime. Your comfort is a legitimate need, not a luxury.

Curating your feed is not denial.

Muting the accounts that spike comparison. Unfollowing the ones that promote “bounce back” culture. Choosing to fill your digital space with education, compassion, and lived experience — that’s not hiding from reality. It’s protecting your mental and emotional energy. It’s creating room for thoughts that support you, not strip you down.

How you speak to yourself isn’t just self-talk.

It becomes modeling — the earliest form of mothering. Your baby may not hear the words today, but they will one day feel the ripple effects of how you relate to yourself. When you practice speaking with kindness, curiosity, and respect to your own body, you’re laying the groundwork for the messages they’ll absorb in the future.

Because the truth is this:

You’re already mothering — long before the baby arrives.

In the way you rest.

In the way you eat.

In the way you talk to yourself.

In the way you honor what your body is asking for.

Every act of care you offer yourself is also care for the tiny human you’re growing.

So let this season be gentle.

Let it be softer than the messages you were raised with.

Let it be guided by compassion instead of comparison.

Let it be a time where you choose support over scrutiny.

Your body is not just changing — it’s communicating.

And you deserve to meet those changes with the same tenderness you’ll one day give your child.