The ridiculous trend gaining popularity amongst new mother

By NICKY CHAMP

If Jessica Alba jumped off a bridge, would you do it?

Okay, that’s a bad example.

If Jessica Alba wore a girdle to regain her post-baby body, would you do it?

The reason I’m asking is because the old-fashioned restrictive garment is gaining popularity amongst new mothers –including celebrity mums like Alba – to help flatten their stomachs after giving birth.

Post-birth girdle brands like Belly Bandit, Bellefit and locally, BodyBelt all promise to assist mothers in the post-birth recovery by reducing back pain, reshaping the belly, waist and hips and decrease bloating and swelling.

Angelina Jolie and Gwen Stefani have previously admitted to using post-birth girdles and Jessica Alba is the latest celebrity to reveal she wore not one, but two corsets after her daughters Honor, four, and Haven, one, were born.

“It was brutal; it’s not for everyone,” Alba says in an interview for Net-a-Porter magazine. “I wore a double corset day and night for three months. It was sweaty, but worth it.”

In another interview with Lucky magazine, Alba said: “I wear a girdle around my tummy from the moment I give birth until it doesn’t feel loosely goosey anymore—that takes a good two to three months. It’s spandex with Velcro.”

One forum member on the original Mail Online article said, “I just think this is so sad – why are women being pressured into getting back into shape so soon after giving birth, so much so that now we’re having girdles pushed at us!”

“I don’t care what a celebrity does or doesn’t do to their body after giving birth – a woman should be concentrating on the most important thing in her life in the period straight after childbirth. Hint: it’s not a girdle.”

According to Baby Center, it’s a common practice in Latin American countries for new mothers to use a girdle after childbirth to help them recover their pre-pregnancy figure – whether it be a ready-made postpartum girdle or compression bandages.

Dispelling the myth that girdles act to tone your stomach muscles, Dr Edward R. Laskowski says it’s actually diet and exercise that will help you regain your figure.

“Although you may appear thinner when you wear a girdle, the girdle doesn’t strengthen or tone your abdominal muscles,” Laskowski writes on the not-for-profit medical practice and medical research group, Mayo Clinic.

“Girdles just temporarily compress and redistribute fat and skin around the abdomen. When it comes to a flat stomach, diet and exercise – not undergarments – are what count.”

I remember reading about postpartum girdles while I was pregnant and mentally filed it into the once the baby comes folder but when that actually happened, I was too swept up in the day-in-day-out routine to be bothered researching it again.

And besides I already felt unattractive enough with the hot sweats, leaking nipples, extreme thirst and fatigue to then strap on a restrictive beige undergarment.

And now I just have one question, do they still work 20 months after you’ve given birth?

Would (or did) you wear a post-birth girdle?