TV personality and fashion designer Whitney Port isn’t shying away from talking about the aftermath of childbirth, especially when it comes to her body.
As part of her “I Love My Baby, But...” video series, Port discussed the anxiety and fear she felt about her body changing while pregnant with her son, Sonny, who was born in July. She titled the episode “I Love My Baby, But I Wish My Body Didn’t Have To Change.”
In the video, Port revealed she gained 40 pounds during her pregnancy and explained she felt like she had little control over her body.
“Gaining the weight was really hard for me,” she said. “It did not make me feel good about myself. I didn’t really want to get dressed. Putting together outfits for work or events or whatever I had to do ― honestly just everyday stuff ― was a stressful thing for me because I just hated how I looked.”
Port also mentioned she experienced nausea while pregnant, which affected her diet, and she touched on her concerns about how her body would look and react after giving birth.
“Having a vaginal delivery changes everything down there, and that’s just something that’s really not discussed, like what it’s actually going to do and that there’s a really long recovery afterwards,” she said. “And it’s painful and uncomfortable.”
The fashion designer also admitted that she worried about her sex life with her husband, producer Tim Rosenman, who remained behind the camera.
“You’re pushing, for me, an 8-pound baby out of a little teeny hole,” she said. “I was obviously concerned about what that was going to do to our sex life ...if it would feel the same, if you would feel the same way about me. I thought a lot about if you were attracted to me and that was hard because I was never insecure about that before.”
In August, Port was refreshingly open about another experience with which many moms struggle: breastfeeding.
“It feels like someone’s like, slicing my nipples with glass,” she said.
In that video, when asked what she would tell other moms dealing with the same pain and discomfort, Port said she’d encourage them to listen to their intuition.
“I would tell them to not listen to anyone else, do what their heart is telling them to do,” she said. “That’s what I really should be doing.”
