Is your torso wider after the baby?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok....I feel the need to provide some information here.

Your ribs are bone. Your rib cage does not grow during pregnancy.

Everyone has the ability to expand or contract their ribcage, using a combination of moving your bones and muscles.

Most women have bad posture, especially when it comes to the rib cage. We stand in a way to make ourselves looks better (ie- boobs out) and that contracts your ribcage. When you get pregnant, your diaphragm moves upwards and forces your ribs to expand. This is also why you may have felt out of breath at the end of your pregnancy- it is because you were actually taking in MORE air than you ever had before because you had an expanded rib area (same feeling you would have if you were hooked up to a pure oxygen tank).

When you were pregnant, your body got used to that posture. Now that you are not pregnant, some people still keep that postural idea and it feels normal to have an expanded ribcage. Some people go back....sometimes immediately and sometimes gradually.

So, right now you could collapse your ribcage and fit back into all those tops....if you knew where to move....

The one exception to this- if you still are carrying weight and some of it is hanging out around your ribs....well, then that fat has made you bigger in that area.

Ok....I am done now....

LOL! Thank you for providing weird and factually inaccurate information! I'm 10 lbs skinnier than I was PP and my rib cage has expanded. And, um, no it's not posture. I mentioned this to my OB and he told me that pregnancy makes both your ribcage (not an individual bone, silly) and your hips / pelvis expand. It's called relaxin..you know, the hormone that causes your ligaments to relax and stretch / lengthen so that your bones can flex more? Yes, that's part of why some women's feet grow, it's responsible for the hip spread and the rib cage expansion.

[Anonymous]

Darn! I was hoping 19:07 had something there. All I would have to do is stand differently, and BAM, goodbye gorilla back!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok....I feel the need to provide some information here.

Your ribs are bone. Your rib cage does not grow during pregnancy.

Everyone has the ability to expand or contract their ribcage, using a combination of moving your bones and muscles.

Most women have bad posture, especially when it comes to the rib cage. We stand in a way to make ourselves looks better (ie- boobs out) and that contracts your ribcage. When you get pregnant, your diaphragm moves upwards and forces your ribs to expand. This is also why you may have felt out of breath at the end of your pregnancy- it is because you were actually taking in MORE air than you ever had before because you had an expanded rib area (same feeling you would have if you were hooked up to a pure oxygen tank).

When you were pregnant, your body got used to that posture. Now that you are not pregnant, some people still keep that postural idea and it feels normal to have an expanded ribcage. Some people go back....sometimes immediately and sometimes gradually.

So, right now you could collapse your ribcage and fit back into all those tops....if you knew where to move....

The one exception to this- if you still are carrying weight and some of it is hanging out around your ribs....well, then that fat has made you bigger in that area.

Ok....I am done now....

LOL! Thank you for providing weird and factually inaccurate information! I'm 10 lbs skinnier than I was PP and my rib cage has expanded. And, um, no it's not posture. I mentioned this to my OB and he told me that pregnancy makes both your ribcage (not an individual bone, silly) and your hips / pelvis expand. It's called relaxin..you know, the hormone that causes your ligaments to relax and stretch / lengthen so that your bones can flex more? Yes, that's part of why some women's feet grow, it's responsible for the hip spread and the rib cage expansion.

Yep, some women's NOSES even spread out permanently. trufax

[Anonymous]

My ribs were hurting quite a bit during my pregnancy. When I brought this up to my obgyn, she said that ribs can move up to two inches during pregnancy. I am sure some women experience this and other don't, but I definitely have a wider torso since giving birth.

[Anonymous]

Another one who lost all the baby weight but had an expanded ribcage AND expanded hips. My tops were all too short and my pants all too tight. But when I tried on tops that fit through the ribs or pants that fit through the waist, my stomach and butt/thighs were swimming in fabric.

Never did find a cut that worked for me before getting pregnant with #2. Doesn't help that I'm petite through the neckline and inseam.

[Anonymous]

Well, the facia of the body -- espec the part of the body that stretches out due to that baby in there! -- can get very loose. and for some women, never fully pull back.

So I went in to see my OB and a plastic surgeon when, seven months after pregnancy, my body was still very, very large. I was within 10 lbs of pre-preg weight at that point. And both told me that my fascia would probably never contract back to their original positions. So most of my substantial poochiness and torso largeness was due to my internal organs just filling out and occupying the new stretched-out real estate.

Poo.

Surgery would be the only way to go to return most of me to where it used to be.

[Anonymous]

So glad to know this wasn't just me. I'm back to size 8 and pre-pregnancy weight but the body shape just isn't the same. Embarrassing muffin top, wider rib cage, and somehow my booty deflated. It was all for a good cause, but sheesh!

[Anonymous]

19:07 here

My response only has to do with your ribcage....not hips, feet, or stomach or muffin top. And it has nothing to do with any extra fat that may or may not be around your ribcage.

Yes, relaxin can allow things to expand, but in a lot of people that is only temporary....and sometimes that is only a part of the problem. Posture is often a part too.

I can put on a suit jacket that fits, unbutton that jacket, and then change my posture so I can no longer button that jacket. Then, I can change things so the jacket is a little loose. From my normal posture, the contraction is a very small movement but the expansion is huge. And a lot of the ribcage expansion takes place at your back (which causes that ape-y look).

Being a vocalist, I have a high degree of body awareness and have worked a lot on rib cage control. I noticed towards the end of my pregnancy that my ribs were forced into the most expanded position and I no longer had any control over making them smaller. And, once my DC was born I had gotten used to that expanded posture so I found myself walking around like that all the time. I had to work to reclamation myself with what should be normal for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:19:07 here

My response only has to do with your ribcage....not hips, feet, or stomach or muffin top. And it has nothing to do with any extra fat that may or may not be around your ribcage.

Yes, relaxin can allow things to expand, but in a lot of people that is only temporary....and sometimes that is only a part of the problem. Posture is often a part too.

I can put on a suit jacket that fits, unbutton that jacket, and then change my posture so I can no longer button that jacket. Then, I can change things so the jacket is a little loose. From my normal posture, the contraction is a very small movement but the expansion is huge. And a lot of the ribcage expansion takes place at your back (which causes that ape-y look).

Being a vocalist, I have a high degree of body awareness and have worked a lot on rib cage control. I noticed towards the end of my pregnancy that my ribs were forced into the most expanded position and I no longer had any control over making them smaller. And, once my DC was born I had gotten used to that expanded posture so I found myself walking around like that all the time. I had to work to reclamation myself with what should be normal for me.

Stick to singing and not giving advice on dcum

[Anonymous]

i find it interesting. if you do not want to listen then don't

[Anonymous]

YES. The rib cage expands permanently. My weight went back to normal but I moved one notch over on the belt. One inch bigger in the waist. No getting around that fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yep, me too, My DS is 6. So, no chance of things changing at this point!

Same here, except it's my DD, and she's 7. Funny story: about 6 months after my now 4-year old DS was born, I went to victoria's secret to buy some new bras. I asked the saleswoman to measure me b/c I had no clue what my size was anymore, after two kids, and I suspected I'd been just wearing the absolutely wrong size during the years between kids. She measured me and said i was a 34 B, and I told her that was absolutely impossible, b/c before kids I was definitely a 36, and there was no way my ribcage shrunk. She kept insisting, but I insisted right back that I wanted to try on 36s and 38s. Turns out they were out of those sizes in the bra I wanted, which is why she told me I was a 34.

[Anonymous]

oh hell yes mine expanded. And I sure as hell felt it, too--from week 16 through 24, millimeter by millimeter

[Anonymous]

Did anyone try using those corsets to pull your hips back together? Did they work? Do they make the expansion harder in subsequent pregnancies?

[Anonymous]

My posture went to hell after my second pregnancy. He was large and malpositioned, so I was used to jutting out my hips based of lower back pain. It's been tough to get the posture back to normal.

However, this is just one of the reasons I look like crap pp, not THE reason.