Everybody’s doing it.
Jessica Alba admitted to wearing two corsets day and night to help whittle her waist back to its prepregnancy size. Gwyneth Paltrow poured herself into two pairs of Spanx to push her post-pregnancy pudge into submission.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg — chances are, someone you know has employed the technique of wrapping her body in the hopes of battling the post-baby body bulge.
“No one’s really okay with their body after their baby,” said Inwood resident Sindy Sanchez, “but no one talks about it.” And they certainly don’t talk about the methods they use to get their bodies back.
Wrapping or binding the body after a baby is nothing new in many cultures, and is rooted in traditions from all over the world. Japanese women wear a “sarashi” for binding, Latino women wrap themselves with a “faja,” and there are similar traditions everywhere from Asia and the Middle East to Europe and South America. In fact, North Americans may be the last people to this popular party.
Belt and corset options readily available concentrate on one of two areas — the hips or the mid-section.
Sanchez, mother of 9-month-old Billie, went the midsection route. “I climbed a mountain right before I got pregnant. I had six-pack abs and was in peak physical condition,” she explained. “I wanted to do what I could to get back there faster.”
Three days after giving birth, she started wearing a Belly Bandit. “You’re going to look pregnant for the weeks after you have your baby,” she said, and she was willing to try whatever it took.
“It made my back feel better,” she admitted. “I’m at my prepregnancy weight, but I don’t look the way I did before.”
Cali Sorensen, a former television reporter and mom of one, went the route of getting her hips back to their regular size.
During pregnancy, the body creates a hormone known as relaxin. It helps relax the connective tissue in a woman’s rib cage, hips and pelvis to allow her to carry a baby and give birth. Some women’s hips and ribs are wider as a result.
Sorensen’s husband and father-in-law, both physicians, tossed around the idea of creating something that could cinch women’s hips back to size using this hormone, which stays in the body from six weeks to six months after birth.
“There were things that applied pressure to the waist and belly, but nothing targeted the hips with tension and torque,” she said. So the HipSlimmer, a lace-up hip corset, was born. “When your hips are in the corset, anatomy pushes those hips back together the way they were before.”
Medical support for these techniques is spotty.
“It’s not going to hurt you to wear a corset, but there is no reliable information that it works,” said Dr. Shannon Hardy, an obstetrician/gynecologist at Methodist Hospital/Texas Medical Center in Houston. “It can provide abdominal and back support to decrease your soreness and pain, particularly with heavier women or women who have had C-sections.” she said. However, Hardy added, “The downside is that having external support can promote weakness over time.”
As for relaxin being used to shrink a woman’s hips, “it could temporarily shrink hips back,” she said. However, she added, “Corsets will not significantly alter your results medically, but I tell my patients it doesn’t hurt to try.”
There is a true medical condition that can be corrected in part by wearing an abdominal splint — a corset-like wrap that covers the abdomen from the bottom of the ribs to the top of the hips. The condition is called diastasis recti, or abdominal separation, where abdominal muscles separate, stretching and thinning the connective tissue that holds them together. It affects anywhere from 80% to 99% of pregnant women.
Both Hudson Heights mom Mollie Slaton and Park Slope mom Kathy Garnett were diagnosed with diastasis recti.
Slaton, the owner of Hudson Pilates, started with a regular compression belt. “I wore a compression belt right after having my baby and then an abdominal splint with the belt,” she said, admitting she wore it for months. “I would work out in it. It’s a reminder and also pulls your abdominals together.”
Slaton teaches postpartum Pilates to new moms, where “I encourage the women to wear belts to narrow their waist.” When she sees a separation, “I recommend my clients wear support belts to help the separation from getting worse, especially for a fast-moving activity.”
Garnett’s journey and diagnosis were a little more complicated.
After the birth of her first child in the U.K., she worked hard at getting her body back in shape. However, “I would look down and see my stomach and wonder, why was it sticking out? What is this?” she said. “I saw a specialist who said, ‘Only you and your husband know about it — no one else has to know.’ I was told I was in great shape, but I just couldn’t wear a bikini anymore. It was demoralizing,” she admitted.
After the birth of her second child in the U.S., she discovered the website DiastasisRehab.com, promoting the Tupler Technique, which includes wearing the abdominal splint 24/7. “I wear the splint night and day and it really works,” Garnett admitted. “I’ve been wearing the splint and doing the exercise program for six months and it has changed my life.”
