BY Dr. Sunayana Sukka,
PhD, Psychologist
Post pregnancy : How to combat body dysmorphia post pregnancy?
As soon as you conceive, your body has to undergo lot of changes physically and emotionally. The journey of bringing new life into this world is an incredible affair. Due to hormonal imbalance in pregnancy a huge transformation is observed in the body especially weight gain, skin tags, stretch marks, pigmentation, saggy breasts, acne and frizzy hair. In addition to this mood changes include, tiredness and fatigue, it makes hard to feel good about body.
According to WHO, postpartum is described as a most critical and yet neglected phase in mother’s life. Body image disturbances during pregnancy may consequently increase the risk of post-partum depression. So, let’s talk more about body dysmorphia after post pregnancy.
What is Body Dysmorphia?
Body dysmorphia is a mental health disorder that leads to distress over your appearance. You may feel certain parts of body are imperfect, where others fail to recognize flaws in them. Most people with BDD are often anxious about their imperfection skin, poor hair and body weight. These thoughts are obsessive and affect their day-to-day life activities.
Post partum & Body dysmorphia
Bearing and giving birth to baby our body did a lot of shifting and changing to accommodate new life. Sleepless nights, skipping meals on times, continuous breast feeding and baby tantrums will just put a new mom into terrible journey. The truth is that, our body changes after delivering a baby so it is nothing to feel bad about the change that has come instead accept and be grateful for the universe that your body is so strong that you were able to hold a healthy baby.
Research says they undergo lot of trauma, depression and fall into low self-esteem by looking their bodily changes in them. In another study it was quoted that social media plays a crucial role as they spend most of the time surfing on body shape exercises which may impact negatively on their body dissatisfaction and their mental health behaviour.
How to Manage?
Seek professional advice– Health care professional support may help them to aim for improving healthy well-being by helping you with giving good diet.
Social Support from partner– Seeking support from spouse bonds relationship between couples. Surrounding yourself with positive people who always affirm you about your good health and feel you secured.
Physical fitness-Doing regular exercises will help to maintain good body posture. Consult physician before starting any work outs.
Being Mindful on Social-media-Social-media can be double edged sword, it can perpetuate unrealistic beauty images and trigger feelings of paucity. Sometimes it gives us good information from community blogs and at the same time it also drops us in unnecessary fields. So, be mindful.
Seek out Therapy
If you’re feeling depressed or anxious, or having any negative feelings or thoughts about body then therapy can help you to lead peaceful life. Speak to Therapist who can help you deal with the situation and help you to face the challenges your’e experiencing.
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