Dear Slendertone,
We need to talk about your ‘New Mum’ advert.
You know the one on your website where the baby is oh so conveniently placed on mum’s hip while she wears one of your products and is achieving in getting her ‘pre-baby body back’.
I presume she is doing this when dad is at work in between going to ‘kid’s parties and pushing the pram’? Is this just before she cleans the whole house and makes dinner from scratch to be on the table when her husband returns home?
Unreal expectations
Can I just ask, where is it that you got the idea for this campaign?
That new mums must suddenly bounce back and get their pre-baby body back? You grew a baby, your stomach expanded beyond recognition and organs moved, your hips widened and then there is the birth itself and you think you can get your pre-baby body back again? Have you asked if new mums even want to?
Even the fittest, healthiest person on the planet will still have irreversible changes made to their body during pregnancy and birth. It is such an archaic idea that women need to have so much pressure from the media, from adverts, other people and now you that they must rush to lose weight and snap back into their pre-baby skinny jeans. If they don’t then they must be a failure?
Acceptance
Why can we not learn to embrace and accept the postpartum body?
Is that idea just too ridiculous? In your advert, you state that it can be used from 6 weeks post birth, or 12 weeks after a C section. I understand the need for gentle exercise after having a baby, but this has been done for years without pressure, unreal expectations and a Slendertone. I will let you into a little glimpse into the world of motherhood at 6 weeks just in case you weren’t aware.
Your body has lost the adrenaline from giving birth and sleep deprivation has hit. You are in full survival mode and you do what you can to make it from one feed and nap to the next. You are basically living on the sofa with a small limpet attached you. There is only one thing you want to do. Sleep. It is not prance around looking like you’ve just stepped out of a Gina Ford book.
I will tell you what I was doing at 6 weeks postpartum. I was barely able to get out of bed with severe post-natal depression, I was hanging on by a thread. I couldn’t care less about what I looked like. I went days without brushing my hair and didn’t wear a scrap of makeup or change out of my PJ’s. But why should I be made to feel bad about this? My experience is a real representation of motherhood, not yours.
Pressure
It is adverts like yours that put pressure on new mums and make them feel inadequate, that they are not what mothers should look like. For a vulnerable new mum, this ideal is damaging and unrealistic.
You say that Slendertone will help me, a ‘new mum’ like myself, get a firm and flatter stomach and boost my confidence.
As ‘being a mum is a tough job’, do I have to be firm and flat to do a good job? As for confidence, it was fine until your advert made me think twice about it.
I am raising two kids under two, and no I am not going to numerous ‘doctor’s appointments, birthday parties and prepping meals’, and my stomach is not firm and flat so what exactly does that make me in your idealistic view of motherhood?
We are not in the 1950’s anymore, mums work, dad’s stay at home and women have actually accepted their bodies for the way they are. You are just another company pushing unnecessary pressure on new mums when we should be standing up and going, guess what I made another human and I need support is accepting, celebrating and adjusting to my new body.
Also, I would perhaps do a bit more market research on what ‘new mums’, actually do as I think you are sorely mistaken.
Small waist means good mum?
I do not need a smaller waist to be a good mum and I hope you rethink your marketing strategy and accept ‘new mums’, do not need to ‘bounce back’.
Here is a tip for free, why not be one of the companies that changes how we view postpartum bodies as a society? That you help new mums feel empowered when they need it most? That we celebrate them, normalise them and accept them. Rather than making them feel worthless and below par?
Perhaps then we can get rid of the ridiculous notion we have been force-fed for so many years that we must be the exact same size as we were before we had a baby.
That we cannot just accept how we look and god forbid be happy with it? We should be proud of what our bodies created and the resulting effects.
From a mum of two who has not got her ‘pre-baby’ body back, nor does she want to.
