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Women are increasingly concerned about issues of shape and weight in pregnancy and post-birth according to a new study.

Psychologist Beth Shelton looked at the attention women consciously pay to their bodies in pregnancy and post-birth and how this relates to body image as part of her recently completed doctoral thesis at Swinburne.

“There seem to be strong, unwritten social rules about how much weight one should gain, where on the body it is acceptable and especially about when it should be gone after the baby is born,” Shelton said.

She conducted an in-depth study of 13 women and their feelings about their bodies. They were interviewed in mid-pregnancy and then again between seven and twelve weeks post-birth.

“For the women in the study, a big tummy and large breasts were okay, even desirable, but weight on any other body parts was often a source of anxiety,” Shelton said. “Six to eight weeks post-birth was seen as the timeline for ‘getting back into my jeans’.

“These social rules are also evident in the increasing preoccupation of women’s magazines with celebrities’ pregnancy and post-birth bodies.”

Most women were able to handle the changes to their bodies that moved them further from strict body image ideals by valuing the functions of their bodies more and the appearance of their bodies less. However, some women struggled with the body changes and may be prone to body dissatisfaction and depression post-birth.

“Body-directed attention is something we all do every day,” Shelton said. “It takes two forms: background body attention which provides a sense of our bodies in everything we do, and focal body-directed attention where our body is the focus of conscious attention.

“We pay focal attention to our bodies either because it is triggered by pain or emotion or because we choose to do so – usually to ‘tune in’ and change our state for the better. For instance, when we notice tension in our throat or chest and release it to create a sense of peace or relaxation.”

In this study, women who were satisfied with their bodies post-birth tended to pay attention to their bodies in a different way to those who were dissatisfied.

The body-satisfied women tended to conclude each event of focal body-directed attention by briefly sensing their whole body and feeling ‘okay’, ‘normal’ or ‘myself’. Those who were dissatisfied tended to conclude each event of focal body-directed attention by ‘seeing’ a body part from the outside and being dissatisfied with the way it looked.

Shelton said the study was valuable as a starting point from which women can develop strategies for dealing with body image challenges in childbirth and in general.