Instagram is full of perfect post-baby bellies that make it seem like you can just "snap back" to your pre-baby body weeks after giving birth. Some people can, and that's awesome. But some people never make it back to their pre-baby body — and that's awesome, too.
It's a message new mom Mia Redworth has been hitting hard in a series of body-positive posts on Instagram. One recent post shows Redworth in yoga pants, letting her belly hang out on the photo on the left and posing to make it look smaller in the photo on the right.
"I have stretch marks from carrying a baba for 42 weeks, a little tummy pouch from a emergency c section, I have eczema from stress on my stomach and spend most of my time looking like the picture of the left," she wrote in the post. "It's totally normal and fine to look like this."
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She reminds everyone to take Instagram with a grain of salt in the same post, and to remember that almost everyone is posting the best photos of themselves.
"Stop thinking everyone on Instagram looks like how they do in pictures 24/7 because 98% of the time they've taken 100 pictures and picked the best one to upload," she wrote. "Stop being so harsh on your bodies. You're gorgeous and perfect with your imperfections, a bloated belly or while you're posing looking your best."
Can we just stop for a moment and think about how amazing that message is? You're perfect in the photos of your "real" self and you're perfect in the photos where you pose. Overall, you're perfect. That's a message we can get behind.
And it's not the only on-point inspiration Redworth has delved out via her Instagram account in the last few weeks.
She also recently posted a side-by-side photo of herself trying on pre-baby clothes, and wrote a relatable post about how a skirt helped her learn to accept her body.
It's normal to be disheartened by some of the ways in which pregnancy changes you, as Redworth wrote in another post. Soon after she had her son, she hated looking in the mirror. But through strength training and learning to love her "imperfections," she grew to love her body.
"The second picture is at around 5 months taking my baby swimming for the first time and loving my body for everything it has done for me," she wrote. "I love my body in all of these pictures because it gave me the most perfect little boy."
Words like this are why Redworth is officially one of our new favourite Insta-moms. We'll be looking out for more nuggets of wisdom from her (as well as cute baby pictures, of course.)