Photographer Jade Beall has a beautiful series titled ‘A Beautiful Body Project’ that reveals what women’s bodies look like after giving birth.
Beall photographed 80 women of all ages, shapes and racial backgrounds, and included their stories of how giving birth changed them.
They might not be a pretty sight with their saggy stomachs, loose skin and stretch marks, but Beall wanted to showcase that these ‘imperfections’ are part of the pregnancy process and shouldn’t be viewed negatively.
She was inspired to embark on her series after a nude self-portrait of her breastfeeding her baby went viral.
Another motivation behind her project was her life-long struggle with poor self-image; it was only during her pregnancy that she started loving her body. However she quickly fell back into self-loathing after giving birth, and became obsessed with losing weight.
The series is also a rebuttal to the pressure on women to be slim–one only needs to look at how celebrities are criticized by the media for looking less than perfect.
Through her stirring and powerful images, Beall wants other women to embrace their figures, and remind them that they are beautiful just the way they are.
The photos are included in a book titled The Bodies of Mothers which appropriately comes out on Mother’s Day, 11 May.
View some photos below and find out more about the book here and on Facebook.
[via The Gloss and The Daily Mail, images via A Beautiful Body Project]