The “Hot Pregnancy” Era Is Supposedly Empowering. It Just Made Me Feel Worse...

Lately, every time I’ve checked Instagram, Anne Hathaway has been on a red carpet in all her maternal glory. Pregnant for the third time, she looked ethereal in a diaphanous Alexander McQueen number. At three months postpartum, my algorithm has been working overtime to show me pregnant women who look impossibly well put together.

While it’s inspiring to see other women wearing what they want during—and post—pregnancy and looking confident while doing so, it gave me a mounting worry that if I wasn’t dressing with the same conviction, then I was out of the loop. It’s no longer enough to own your pregnancy in whichever way you feel; now, you’re expected to grow a human and look effortlessly stylish and sexy while doing it.

For a long time, it felt like, societally, pregnant women were berated and fat-shamed, encouraged to ‘bounce back’ — as if being pregnant was a horrible aberration from how we’re naturally supposed to look. I’d argue that Rihanna heavily influenced this cultural shift when she stepped out in an open pink jacket and ornate body jewellery to reveal her first pregnancy in 2022. Since then, a bump has become the hottest accessory: exposed, dressed up and shown off. While pregnant women should feel confident to don whatever they like, are we now only celebrating pregnant bodies that are conventionally attractive and stylishly displayed?

I found out I was pregnant the same week that Sienna Miller announced her third pregnancy at last year’s Fashion Awards, proudly wearing a sheer Givenchy dress. I was also there, feeling terribly self-conscious in a longline dress that did little to disguise my first-trimester bloat. I knew Miller was a gorgeous celebrity with all the resources at her disposal, and she deserved to look and feel good. But I couldn’t shake the creeping panic: I was already feeling less confident in my style as my face and body started to change, so how was I ever going to feel attractive if this was the new standard?

The feeling was compounded by the deluge of pregnant influencers that cropped up on my “For You” page. I felt embarrassed and envious, poring over photos of women in cropped tops and low-rise skirts like nothing was different. They appeared chic and sultry, as if the trappings of pregnancy (think: bloating, acne and extreme fatigue) were barely affecting them.

Saskia Beazley, who had her daughter nearly two years ago, also felt she was doing pregnancy all wrong: “I was made to feel like I wasn’t doing enough to appreciate my bump, like showing it off by wearing really beautiful dresses.” It seems that what initially appeared as an opportunity for self-expression has inadvertently birthed a fresh set of beauty standards.

Andrea Witt is a cognitive behavioural therapist for Mothering Minds, a practice that supports women through pregnancy and postnatal care. She sees clients impacted by these expectations. “The media perpetuates [the idea] that pregnancy is all glamour, which just leads to another area in the journey where women can feel they are falling short,” she tells me. “I see many women who feel completely lost in their own body after going through pregnancy and birth. The expectation is that you’ll be ‘blooming’, whereas for many women it is the direct opposite of that.”

When I reached five months, my mum told me I looked “way bigger” than I should be for that stage, so I hid my belly in oversized tees and drawstring trousers. As someone who once loved wearing a figure-hugging co-ord, I had to accept that the clothes I liked just wouldn’t hang off my body in the same way.

“I’ve felt pressured not to look different,” says Maggie Mullan, who’s pregnant with her first child. “People praise you for not changing.” Many of the influencers I came across appeared to maintain their pre-pregnancy figures. I was bombarded with content from impressively toned momfluencers running marathons at six months pregnant or lifting super-heavy weights at the gym, which made me feel sluggish and guilty for not doing more.

I managed to attend one yoga class during pregnancy: I overdid it and strained my back in an effort to prove I could still keep up.

Beazley had a personal trainer while pregnant. “Every week my trainer would post a compilation video of my workout. I reshared it the first time, when I was smaller, but I didn’t share anything once I got bigger,” she tells me. “I thought, what if people think I look really weird in my new body?”

The reality of pregnancy is that both our bodies and minds drastically transform. Yet, I felt expected to project an image of unwavering contentedness, no matter how I felt internally. I felt I was supposed to follow the likes of the influencers filling my For You Page: cradling my bump, looking radiant and baking from scratch — nausea notwithstanding.

A 2024 study interviewed women in the UK during pregnancy. They explained feeling pressured by the expectation to be “happy and glowing” throughout, which ultimately worsened their mental health.

Dr Sujitha Selvarajah, an NHS Obstetrics & Gynaecology specialist, explains, “The pressure to become a particular kind of mother can have a significant effect on self-esteem. Women may know intellectually that what they see online is not the whole reality, but that does ot make them immune to it, particularly when they are feeling vulnerable or searching for reassurance and connection.”

Becoming a mother made me feel exposed in ways I didn’t anticipate. While I feel privileged to have carried my daughter, the experience was marred by feeling like I had to perform an unrealistic version of pregnancy during what was meant to be a special time.

“The expectations make me feel like a failure”, agrees Emmanuella Kwenortey Francis, who’s halfway through her second pregnancy. Mullan believes that collectively, we need to reframe our thinking: “There’s an acceptance amongst many pregnant women that the changes to our bodies and physical appearance are out of our control,” she explains. By contrast, she says, “we should go into pregnancy expecting to put on weight, get puffy and generally not feel quite like the version of ourselves we’re used to.”

If I ever have the opportunity to be pregnant again, I’ve decided to lean into the process and rally against the expectations that come with expecting. There should be less focus on how women show up and look during pregnancy. We deserve the freedom to feel confident, crappy and everything in between.