“Expecting a horse?” – Pregnant mum trolled over the size of her baby bump
Melbourne mum Elisha Bakes recently gave birth to her second child – she’s already mum to almost two-year-old Kyson – but she says her pregnancy was marred by judgemental trolls making fun of the size of her bump.
“Expecting a horse?”
Elisha told UK newspaper The Sun that the negative comments kicked off after she posted a photo of herself at 14 weeks, and they just didn’t stop.
Trolls targeted Elisha’s body shape and questioned her diet, commenting that “she must be expecting a horse” she should “lay off the food” and simply that she is “gross” and must be “expecting 78 babies.”
It’s pretty horrible behaviour, especially when women carry their babies in a variety of ways and the shape of their bump is nobody’s business.
Second pregnancies often show much sooner and women often carry a little bigger than with their first two. Not that Elisha needs any justification for simply doing what comes naturally.
“I found out I was pregnant when I was six weeks along,” she told The Sun. “I had just stopped breastfeeding my son and we fell pregnant straight away. As this was my second pregnancy, I popped a lot sooner than the first time.”
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“What did you eat?”
A quick skim of the comments on Elisha’s Instagram confirms that some people have no filter and no manners either.
“Wtf this is so big,” one person wrote.
“I always come to your page to look at your pictures and say ‘her belly is so big.’ Your baby just better be over 8 pounds mama,” another commenter ordered.
“What did you eat?” someone else snarked.
“Eww don’t eat like that,” another commenter posted alongside a photo of Elisha satisfying a burger craving, “you’re going to gain so much weight.”
Body image anxiety
Elisha says her experience highlights a real problem when it comes to pregnancy, privacy and body image. She explains that some insensitive people seem to feel they have free reign when it comes to commenting on pregnant bodies, and that it’s eroding expectant women’s confidence and impacting their pregnancies in all kinds of ways.
“I had hundreds of messages from women who had experienced the same thing,” she says.
“They told me how they would get very anxious about people commenting on their bump and would make them feel very insecure and not be able to enjoy their pregnancy.”
‘Only’ 8 pounds
After Elisha gave birth, the comments kept coming, believe it or not. Sigh.
“People would say, ‘Oh he only weighed 8lbs.’ I think a lot of people were eager to see how big he would be, expecting him to be huge,” she explained.
What are people even thinking?! This sort of nonsense behaviour really needs to stop. Pregnant women have enough to deal with without also being held to unrealistic body expectations – and the relentless trolling – of complete strangers. Ugh.
Huge congratulations to Elisha and partner Tane on the safe arrival of their little one.
