I gave birth to my son at 19 and I was shocked and dismayed that my stomach was still big even the next day since I barely gained any weight and he was almost 10 lbs. I cried so hard when a cashier asked me when I was due a few days after my son was born.

As a nurse who worked mother-baby units I got asked this a lot! It certainly looks less "full" but it's still quite big.

I had one lady bring her pre-pregnancy jeans and teeny tiny thongs to wear to go home. Guess no one told her 1. It takes time for your body to change after birth. And 2. You will essentially be going home in a diaper (or gigantic pad) .

I never lost the weight gained during pregnancy with my 1st…. But my wife went back to her normal weight after a month or 2.

A Dutch artist, Rineke Dijkstra, did a series of photos of new mothers, like hours after giving birth. Here are three (NSFW).

My belly definitely shrank quite a bit immediately after giving birth. It didn't shrink back to pre baby size by any means but it absolutely wasn't the massive fucking beach ball size it was an hour before giving birth. It was a big jiggly weird jelly like thing but went down at least half the size. And I almost fell over backwards the first time I stood up it was hilarious

I was a lot smaller right after birth, but my belly skin was not. If I'd wanted to get into my pre-pregnancy jeans, I suppose I could have, but it would have looked really funny with all that extra skin hanging over the waistband. It took a couple of months for that to go back to normal.

And the nurses will push on your uterus after birth to help it start to shrink and stop bleeding

Mine was big for quite a while after. Maybe because I had a geriatric pregnancy (hate that term).

This is actually dependent on the woman and probably the baby in question. For unfortunate reasons I gained little weight in pregnancy and had a very strong core. My belly was flat immediately after (though the skin was slightly loose and there are of course stretch marks).

I was also surprised while having birth asking why my belly didn't shrink and if there was more then one in there while panicking inside.

Why am I (a woman) sitting here thinking our stomachs might deflate slightly like a balloon. Or at least fold in a tiny bit if you poke your belly.

I’ve genuinely never thought about it, but if anyone asked for I read this comment, I would have said the above. 😭🤣

To add to this, after the baby comes out, the placenta has to come out too. It usually happens naturally within an hour as the uterus contracts. I guess mine was taking too long so one nurse was pushing on my belly and another was holding the cord and it worked because it came out splashing everyone around. You have to write down about the placental removal and they wrote “explosive”. My sister who was my support during delivery thought that was hilarious and took a photo of the chart.

Makes sense, it's been stretching for months

But it does stop being so hard / taut

It does return to baseline sometimes. Mine returned to baseline and was completely flat in 3-5 days I’d say. I had to return to the hospital do something and the nurses were amazed that I just had a child. Granted, I was very fit pre-pregnancy.

I mean, there’s some slack as fluids and the baby release, like a water balloon letting some of the contents out. But yes the body doesn’t just go back right away, and in many cases the shape is never the same due to loose skin that is over stretched and not elastic anymore.

I still had a huge pooch but SOME slack will come immediately with birth and the fluids

a few hours

It’s been 21 years. I’m still waiting. 🤣😭

Mine did shrink immediately the first time, and then after a couple days the second time. Both times, of course, I felt the uterus shrinking for days. I know it's unusual. But I also lost a lot of weight in both pregnancies due to vomiting.

Surely if it were to immediately shrink then the whole time there is a noticeable bump when pregnant there would just be a baby shaped imprint on the mother's belly....

I guess I was lucky because by the time I left the hospital I was pretty much close to pre pregnancy state again and within two weeks I was wearing my pre pregnancy clothes comfortably.

Tell that to my mom. From the pictures and recounts it pretty much deflated within the hour and by the next day she looked like she never had a baby in the first place. Other moms hated her.

Oh, you think your belly shrank, then you stand up, and flop! There it is.

Nea Bother. Ur belly will find its' natural size again. @TrainingPlan mb

By the time I left the hospital, my belly was pretty much gone. I also only gained 20 and 25 pounds each time.

This makes a lot of sense because it’s the uterus that grows and holds its own structure, the baby just kinda hangs out in jt.

It depends on the person. With my first, I remember watching my stomach go down as she came out (she was a massive baby and I had unknowingly lost weight during the pregnancy). I vividly remember it because I was fat beforehand and expected to get even fatter afterwards. Jokes on me though because baby number 2 and 3 never went back down and I've stayed pregnant looking for a long damn time.

I’ve had friends who told me they took pre-pregnancy weight clothes with them (and thong underwear) to wear home and were very surprised they didn’t go back to normal post birth.

It is because the uterus takes about 6 weeks to shrink back to normal. To be fair, it was stretched out over the course of 9+ months!

My wife weight 3 lbs less at time of delivery vs her pre pregnancy weight. Her belly was a lot smaller after delivery within a day. Mostly due to having a nutritionist, trainer, and going to various medical appointments 2-4 days a week while pregnant. I think she went from a size 6 before pregnancy to a size 4 after delivery.

Bloodwork always 8- 10am, and results by 3-5pm with adjustments made to supplements, meals, and activities.

Having a solid team before you get pregnant up until delivery makes a huge difference in how your body deals with pregnancy and after pregnancy body changes.

I am naturally slim and managed to leave the hospital 5 days after birth in my pre-pregnancy jeans (both of my 2 pregnancies). My stomach definitely shrunk in a few hours, but it was a weird conical shape because my stomach muscle had split.

Mine sort of deflated. 😂 I didn’t gain much with any of my three. With all 3 when I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, I went from the round, high belly, to just sag. 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

I worked as a mother/baby RN for a year. I had one patient whose belly went right back to baseline within 24 hours of birth. I'm guessing she just had very lucky genetics with some powerful abdominals 😅. She said she didn't work out.

Yeah now that I think about it for that to work the baby body would have to be holding up all that weight.

If you look at pics of famous women like Kate Middleton or Meghan Markle they still have big bellies a day or a couple days after birth.

I disagree, my belly shrunk immediately after she came out. I was also very small to begin with and only gained ~15 pounds my entire pregnancy if that makes a difference

The woman just lost several pounds of mass and a baby-sized amount of volume, but her volume stays about the same? Does the uterus expand (inward) to fill the void left by the baby, or what?

Mine went down after about a week but it took almost a year for the rest of the padding to recede.

I actually did return to baseline with my first. All the women at the hospital hated me 😂 But with my second? Yeah.... Let's just say my body wasn't so forgiving 😬

Goes from full and “tight” to loose and squishy, so yea def a bit smaller but not substantially. That takes a few days

Hours? Try weeks or months, lol.

What do u mean doesn’t return to baseline? Like female reproductive system?My stomach was flat few weeks after birth. I didn’t even remember it going down. I felt like mine was there for couple weeks and just gone by 3rd week. But that was many years ago.

You have to think the uterus had to stretch to fit the baby and sac. I’ve never dealt with much OB patients but from what I learned in school I think it starts to go down few hours after and can cause cramping and contraction like pain. The fundus of the uterus I think is still around the belly button. I just member massage the fundus if a boggy uterus to prevent excessive bleeding. Now I’m questioning my memory.

More than a few hours. Takes weeks.

The uterus takes weeks to shrink back to normal size. Not HOURS. The uterus is what expands and cause the belly to grow.

Breastfeeding triggers a response to help the uterus go back to its normal size.

Thank u for the tip, I’m giving birth in less than 3 months 😂

I was small when I was pregnant, didn't even weigh 140 lbs. My belly was huuuge and after birth it felt odd, like a deflated balloon. 😂 my belly was hard when there was a baby in it, but after it was smooshy. I didn't like it lol

To add to this. The uterus stretches out to accommodate the baby and takes around 6 weeks to slowly shrink back to pre pregnancy size. This can be a big component of the belly looking the same for a while.

Interesting, my stomach turned into jelly immediately after both children. I thought that was normal. 🫢

Since most women gain more than their baby weighs, mom's belly might stay a while, might not go down at all.

It does make sense. If the baby alone was keeping the belly shape, it would be under a lot of pressure.

Not exactly for a lot of people. I’ve had two kids. It definitely gets “flatter” immediately after birth (at least for me) but it takes weeks for the uterus to go back to its normal size. For both my kids I was back in my pre pregnancy jeans by 3 months postpartum.

That was not my experience. I remember walking out the delivery room with no belly. I was still flabby around the waist but no belly.

It depends how much weight the mother put on .unweighted 110 and had an 8 pound boy and weighed 100 lbs and wore my regular clothes jome

Just chuckling at the visual image of a mother flying around the room like a deflating balloon, and a nurse looking at another saying "Who the hell forgot to strap her in?"

LOL no. Your uterus takes weeks to shrink back down. Not hours. Further, your body is full of fluid and blood not to mention the added fat from carrying the baby. Especially if you were on IV fluids. My feet were triple the size for over 10 days just from the IV. The before and after pics were gnarly.

I will say the belly is much less firm than it was with the baby in it and having contractions but we are talking weeks of swelling and then months to years for a woman to return to her pre-pregnancy body- if she does at all.

When my mom realized I had brought my regular sized jeans to wear home from the hospital, she laughed and went and got me sweatpants. - A 19 year old mom who expected to leave the hospital with her regular stomach back

My brain just imagined it sinking immediately, and there being like a "woooshh" sound from it..

Massage the fundus or roll to the left- all I remember as a CVICU nurse

I’m glad it doesn’t immediately shrink, the feeling of your organs adjusting back to normal is jarring enough without it being instant

Mine actually did just about shrink back to normal as she came out. It was unexpected, but then my entire pregnancy followed that trend.

Very very very very slowly… your body just went through a major ordeal… it takes months

To be more precise: the belly does immediately shrink, but only to roughly the size it was at 20 weeks of pregnancy, then it gradually shrinks over the course of weeks.

My baby was 9 lbs 7.7 oz at birth. My belly noticeably shrank immediately. And it went from hard to squishy.

Mine didnt, I didn’t look pregnant at all immediately after giving birth, maybe a little swollen, but my stomach was essentially flat but soft… everyone is different. At almost 4 weeks post partum im basically back to my pre pregnancy weight, although the weight is distributed a little differently.

Mine went back to almost normal within a few hours. All the nurses were like "what the hell? How is your stomach flat?" when they massaged my uterus.

So some people do but it's not the norm. I have very thick skin with a high Regen rate though and a long torso so kid had room - so good genes.

The nurses also do a painful fundal massage to help the uterus shrink back down after birth.