Women risk harming their newborn babies by rushing to lose weight and ‘reclaim their skinny jeans’ after giving birth, experts claim.

Expectant mothers are under pressure to copy celebrities’ rapid weight loss, and achieve a ‘state of emaciation’ within six weeks, they said.

A government-commissioned report called for midwives to display pictures of bigger women such as US comedian Mo’Nique as an example of ‘different shapes and sizes’. 

The official guidance also warns midwives not to refer to food such as biscuits as ‘naughty’ so that new mothers do not feel pressure to shed their baby weight.

As it was published, the Women and Equalities minister, Jenny Willott, said women should focus on the joys of being a mother and not losing weight.

The Lib Dem MP said: ‘There is a relentless pressure on all women, celebrities or not, to be thin all the time and research shows mothers who are preoccupied with body image problems are not only damaging their bodies but these negative attitudes can be passed onto their children.

‘It’s sad that women feel pressured to lose weight so quickly after pregnancy, and it isn’t healthy.’

Among the celebrity mothers reported as having ‘pinged’ back to their pre-birth weight are Victoria Beckham, who went back to a size 6 just weeks after the arrival of baby Harper in 2011.

The model Miranda Kerr and presenter Myleene Klass have also been pictured in figure-hugging clothes shortly after giving birth. The report, which was published by the Government Equalities Office, was written by controversial psychotherapist Susie Orbach and Holli Ruben, a body image specialist.

It says there is an ‘epidemic’ of eating problems among women, and that mothers can pass on their anxieties and difficulties with food to their children, especially their daughters.

They claim: ‘If [a mother] feels insecure in her body and relates to it chaotically, bingeing for several days and restricting eating on others, for example, the baby will sense the tension in her body as it unconsciously begins the process of developing his or her own body signature.’ 

They warn of ‘pressure’ which encourages women to restrict their eating so they have ‘less to lose’ after the baby is born. At the same time, mothers-to-be are also expected to indulge themselves during their pregnancy.

It states that women end up focusing on themselves rather than the baby ‘in a way that is not about health but is about the reclaiming of skinny jeans after delivery’.

The report adds that images which ‘laud celebrity mothers who achieve a state of emaciation six weeks after delivery are switching the focus of the post-partum period away from mother and baby getting to know each other and finding a rhythm together’.

They warn against the cultural pressure on a mother to ‘present herself physically as though nothing as momentously body-changing as having a baby has occurred’.

Weight experts backed the conclusions. Tam Fry from the National Obesity Forum said women risk causing ‘emotional damage’ to their children.

He advised women it should take around six to nine months to return to pre-pregnancy weight, saying: ‘There is huge pressure on women and it’s very damaging. The body has gone through a major change over the previous nine months.

‘Women would be hugely ill-advised to succumb to both peer pressure and the pressure from celebrities to do anything other than take it gently.’

He added that most women do not have specialist trainers on hand to help them.

The Royal College of Midwives said that the pressure put on new mothers to lose weight after their birth of their babies can result in them feeling ‘failure and shame’.

Cathy Warwick, chief executive of Royal College of Midwives, said: ‘New mothers often feel under great pressure, and this can surface in feelings that their bodies are a source of failure or shame.

‘Midwives are there to help, and will want to reflect on the implications of this report for their own clinical practice.’

Written By Jack Doyle, Retrieved From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2647450/Rushing-skinny-jeans-giving-birth-risks-harming-baby-government-warns-new-mums.html